After the Nova
by Kat36
Summary: That falling star was for Vicious. Spike is not dead. Not in my universe, anyway...
1. Mercy by Tian Ning

One important thing about this story. Although it's posted under my name, it's actually a full collaboration, written alternately between me and Tian Ning. She's obsessed with Jet, I'm obsessed with Spike, so that worked out great, didn't it? This first chapter is hers, and takes place directly after the events in the final Bebop episode. 

As the summary suggests, we weren't willing to let Spike be dead, and that's how this story came to be. (Why am I always having to resurrect my bishies??) 

We don't own Cowboy Bebop, Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed, or Ein. Other characters are our own invention. The story is rated PG13 for some adult themes, sexual content, violence, and language. 

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**_Mercy, or Why I Didn't Marry the Shrew Woman_**

"I'm back." She leaned into the observation deck, hands pressed against either door jamb. A faint, red point cast by the end of his cigarette was the only light behind the domed window. The rest of the deck was sunk in darkness behind the glowing curve of Mars' horizon. 

"I heard you come in." 

She dropped her hands to her sides, sauntered a step forward, and wrinkled her nose. "What's with all the bleach? I nearly choked when I came in." 

"It's called cleaning up." His voice was unusually low and quiet. "A foreign concept to you." 

"Very funny," she returned. "But didn't you go a little over the top? I mean, from what I saw, I think you could eat out of the john now." 

"Suit yourself. I'm not that hungry." 

Wearily, she flopped down on one of the cushioned benches facing the window. "You're hopeless. I'm just trying to make a little conversation." 

"Go right ahead." 

She gave an irritated sigh. _Okay, so he's as upset as I am_, she thought_. But that doesn't give him the right to be such a pompous jerk_. She was quiet for a few moments before she ventured, "I couldn't get within a kilometer for a flyover. The airspace all around the site is declared a secured area, and the whole place is crawling with ISSP." As her eyes adjusted, she made out his silhouette. He was motionless, still in the same position as when she had left him eight hours before, staring out the observation deck window. A half-empty whiskey bottle stood next to the ankle of his wounded leg, propped on the short table in front of him. He was pressing the side of his glass against his lips, and didn't seem to be listening. 

"But I did get close enough to intercept the ISSP vid crew's transmission." 

This, at last, provoked a response. A blast of smoke curled around his head as he swiveled as far around as he could without moving his leg. His arm went rigid against the seat, his voice strained. "And?" 

"Well, I saw him." 

Jet leaned forward. "Are you sure? You saw Spike, for sure? Was he alive?" 

She wasn't sure how to say it. "We've both seen a lot of dead people in our lives. Andhe looked a lot like that." 

"You're sure it was him?" 

"They scanned him up close." 

"Did you record the transmission?" 

" I tried. Haven't played it back yet. But I brought it." She lifted his black laptop. "It's out of juice. Is there someplace in here to plug it in?" 

"That port's working," he gestured to an outlet below the window and crushed out his cigarette. Wincing as he swung his leg around, he got up and leaned against his brace. 

"Still hurting?" 

"Just stiff when I first move." 

She had already plugged in the computer and was punching at the keyboard. "Damn. Where'd I save it?" 

Jet shouldered her away and rapidly tapped in the commands. He lowered himself to the bench again, and as the noisy images began reflecting their flickering light over him, Faye moved away. She had already seen it live, and didn't want a re-run. It was going to be bad enough to watch it again on Jet's face. 

His brow furrowed. "Sound card's messed up. Butokay. There's Bob. I figured he'd be on the scene. I can probably get the straight story from him." His eyes suddenly went wide. "Holy shit. Harvey Baum. He never leaves his office any more. Why the hell is he out there in the field?" He frowned, staring intently. "He must have known it was Spike. That's the only thing that could have brought him out. Ah, jeez" His face screwed up in dismay and disgust. 

Faye glanced at the screen, and saw the replay of officers dragging half a corpse out of the wreckage, its entrails dragging behind. "When Spike goes in, he really goes in." 

Bob's face filled the screen, and his hands waved the recording crew to the left as he mouthed unheard commands. The camera's eye bounced wildly about for a moment, then snagged a square, small-eyed face. 

Jet's jaw dropped. "No way. Hitchcock. That's _Hitchcock_, the slimy bastard." 

"You know that guy?" 

"Wish I didn't." The corner of his mouth tightened. "He'd sell his own mother if it would buy a leather seat upgrade for his little Porsche zipcraft. Back when I was on the force, rumor had it he was on the Dragon payroll. But anyone who tried to investigate always seemed to have some unfortunate accident and end up in a nice, engraved ISSP urn. So his official record's as clean as they come." 

Hitchcock mouthed something to the camera, which then panned away and came to rest on a dark shape sprawled across the blood-drenched steps. A body draped in a black trenchcoat. "Oh, god, Spike," Jet's voice was hoarse. "Ah, Spike, you idiot." 

They had rolled him onto a bright orange body bag, tucked in his legs, and were zipping it shut. A hand motioned in the camera's eye, beckoning it to the corpse's face. It held there for a moment, while the hand held the bag open. The grey visage, eyes barely open, a string of blood trailing from the edge of the mouth, was unmistakable. Faye glanced at Jet again, and in the bluish light, he seemed to have gone even more pale. He did not look away as the hand slowly zipped the bag over Spike's face, and the camera panned up again to Hitchcock. 

Jet blinked slowly and narrowed his eyes. "What's he got going here?" he whispered, as if to himself. "He's supposed to be stationed on Europa. He's got to have something big cooking to risk getting into a pissing war with Baum." 

"Jet, you saw Spike. Even if this Hitchcock guy is involved in some shady deal, it's over now. At least for us. There's nothing more you can do." 

Jet stared blankly at the screen, some part of his mind noticing that in the background, as the camera played talking head with Hitchcock, the officers carrying the bag containing his partner's body had broken into a jog, and quickly disappeared from the screen. 

He slumped back against the bench and recrossed his arms, scowling with his eyes closed. "So. That's it, then," he growled. "He went out with the intention of getting himself killed. When he really wants to, he does have a knack for doing things right. I was hoping that when that list of casualties came out, that maybe it'd been wrong." His voice took on a hint of desperation. "Things get really confused at a crime scene like that, I can tell you. And when he was listed there, right there in alphabetical order, it just seemed toosimple." 

He picked up the whiskey glass, filled it, and gripped it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Faye absently thought it was a good thing he wasn't holding it in his robotic arm, or the thing would have shattered and flown all over the room. He slammed back the drink in one gulp. "Damn him!" he said hoarsely. "_Damn_ him." 

"I just thought you'd want to see for yourself," she said, almost meekly. 

"I did." He turned and looked her in the eye. "Thanks." 

She knew she probably shouldn't push it further, but heard herself ask. "You okay, Jet?" 

"I'm fine!" he snapped so sharply that she flinched. 

_Sure you are_, she thought. _You're always fine. Always in control Never need anything from anyone, even when you're feeling like this. Why do I even bother to pretend I care? _

And suddenly the sensation was on her again. The dizziness. She'd started to recognize the feeling that accompanied an old, returning memory swelling behind her eyes. What was it going to be this time? 

It was Alice. That old lady with the purple hair whose house was so filled with cats that you could hardly breathe for the smell when you walked in the door. Alice's old, translucent parchment face was leaning into hers. _What brought this on?_ she wondered. But she already knew better than to suppress the return of her old life, and so she blinked and let the thing run its course. 

Old Alice. The nuns had always made her visit and bring Alice food and necessities once a week. Protest fell on deaf ears. "It cheers her up so to see you, so young and sweet," she could almost hear Sister Mary Bernadette's annoying chirp. "She's so lonely. She needs the company. And it will bring you grace." 

She'd hated those visits. Those cats everywhere, with their big, mooning eyes, staring at her. Alice could never turn away a stray. The smell of stale urine and cat food was almost real with the memory. Every one of those stray cats had a name and a story, and the old lady's eyes would go all wet in the endless telling and retelling of those stories while Faye had sat helpless, holding her breath and trying to take air only through the slit of her mouth. It seemed to make Alice feel strong, to think that she'd saved all those worthless cats. But all it really did was suck her every last dime and cloud her every waking thought with worry. Faye had never understood why anyone would saddle herself with so much responsibility for so little reward. 

Alice had been proud. She'd made a great show of not accepting the gifts from the nuns at the boarding school, but always taking them just the same. Faye remembered the look in Alice's eyes--eager and ashamed--as her knobby old fingers rattled through the jars of jam and crackled against the plastic-wrapped buns and fruit. Faye felt her face wrinkle with the disgust she'd always felt, but couldn't show back then. Alice was needier than her scrawny cats, and she didn't even know it. 

A wave of nausea tensed the back of her tongue, and then came the shock of that last visit. The day she'd knocked on the door and gotten no answer. The windows were full of flies. Clouds of them. That cold looseness in her bowel came back, the terror of it. Why she'd opened that door, she didn't know. But the vision that assailed her was as clear now as the day she'd actually seen it: the corpse sitting upright in its big, lobed chair, its face and hands eaten away by desperate cats who'd had nothing to eat or drink for the week or more that their caretaker had been dead. 

Faye moaned, and bent over her knees, crossing her arms over her middle. 

"Faye!" His breath was hot against her neck, and the sharp tang of whiskey on it brought her to her senses. "You all right?" 

"I'm fine." She rocked forward until her forehead rested on her thighs. "Just another bad memory coming back. I have no idea where that one came from, but it was nasty." 

His hand was warm on her shoulder. His real hand. His other was close to her face, holding the glass, two fingers full. "Take it." The voice had lost its harshness, and was suddenly gentle. He stifled a burp. "I sure don't need any more than I've already had." 

She downed it and gasped. "Thanks." 

He slumped back against the bench a few arms' lengths from her. The angle of Mars' reflected light had changed with their orbit, and he was now faintly outlined in burnt amber. She took a deep breath and stared at him, realizing that she had not often looked at his face. She'd spent more time avoiding him than seeking his company. But in this light, he seemed different, somehow. His hard, chiseled features were haggard, and he looked far older than he ordinarily did. 

"So," she said. "What do we do now?" 

"Haven't thought about it." 

She draped her arm over the back of the bench and studied him silently. "Will you go back to Ganymede? That's your home satellite, isn't it?" 

"There's nothing for me on Ganymede," he said, propping his leg back up on the table. "Fifteen years there was enough. I wouldn't call it home." He paused before adding, "Anyway, I was born on Earth." 

Faye's mouth opened slightly. He had never shared anything with her about his background or personal life, and even this small revelation seemed monumental to her. "Earth?" she breathed. "Like me?" 

"Canada. New Toronto, to be exact." 

"Will you go there?" 

"Haven't thought about it." His tone said clearly that he wished to end the subject. For once, she respected his wishes and sat still, watching him. His eyes seemed unusually bright. Almost as if. No. That was impossible. 

"Jet," she leaned towards him, squinting. "Jet, are you okay?" 

He continued to stare soundlessly out the domed window. 

She clambered across the cushions on all fours and brought her face close to his temple. Though he tried not to react, she sensed him recoil. "Jet, you're not" 

"Don't be stupid." His voice was gruff. "I just overdid the damned bleach." 

"You knowit's okay to be sad." 

"Why should I be sad? He was nothing but trouble from Day One." 

She gave an exasperated sigh. "Fine. Say what you want." She settled back against the bench and glared out the window. "But I'm not afraid to admit I feel like shit right now." 

Jet seemed to consider this for a moment. "Yeah, well, it was pretty obvious how you felt about him." 

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" 

"Whatever you want to think it means." 

_Oh, no you don't, Jet. You're not turning this back around on me. _

"We were comrades. Partners. All three of us." 

"So you say." 

She wasn't sure whether she wanted to put her arms around him or cold cock him. But she was tired of fighting. She almost surprised herself by gently dropping a hand on his shoulder. "There's just us to remember him now." 

There was no reaction from him for a long moment. And then, amazed, she felt his hand close over hers. For a while, they sat motionless and unspeaking. She thought she felt tremors under her fingers, but couldn't be sure. And as she studied him, an odd feeling came over her, foreign and not unpleasant. Was it pity? It was an odd feeling in her to begin with, and even odder to feel it for him. He'd always been the silent, tough one--the one who took care of them all. He'd been their anchor, protector and savior whenever things went wrong. How must the Old Man feel now, to be so helpless in the face of Spike's suicide? 

"Hey, Jet?" She gave his shoulder what she hoped felt like an affectionate tug. And then came the strange epiphany: some part of her wanted him to turn to her for comfort. She pondered this new feeling, and wondered how to act on it. Slipping her hand out from under his, she experimentally slid it across the broad span of his shoulders, resting her inner arm against the back of his neck. She had to suppress a smile when he uncomfortably cast a furtive, sidelong glance at her cleavage, now nestled close against his biceps. He drew in and let loose a long, tired sigh, and she let herself smile. She knew men well enough to know it was his way of trying to inhale her perfume and scent while pretending not to. So naïve, for such a battered old man, to think she wouldn't know. But again to her surprise, she found that even this subtle attention from him was pleasing. 

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and let her free hand trace across his chest and rest on his hard, robotic shoulder. He stiffened and tucked his chin to look at her, but seemed at a loss about how to react. "Areare you sure you're okay?" he stammered. 

"I can't believe this," she said, and meant it. " I can't believeSpike. I feel terrible." 

"Yeah, me, too." The words slipped through his teeth, and he fell silent again, as if afraid his voice might betray him. She shifted, and all at once they were holding each other, their faces pressed hard, cheek to cheek. 

"I'm.glad you came back," he mumbled. 

"You are?" 

"Yeah." He lifted his head so that hers was cradled in the hollow of his throat. She felt his Adam's apple working furiously against her forehead. When it finally stilled, a hoarse whisper. "This ship's too big and quiet for one right now." 

A rush of warmth filled her. Had he almost said that he needed her? No one had ever needed her. Not for anything except money, anyway. Or wanting to get her on her back. Somehow, the idea that Jet, always so tough and self-reliant, needed just her companionship and comfort made her feel better than she'd felt in a very long time. 

This was the first time she'd ever touched him. She'd come close enough to tease or heckle him as long as Spike was nearby, but had never offered contact, nor had he invited it. As captain of the BeBop, he had always seemed so distant, serious, and in control of every situation. He was too huge, too overpowering. She didn't like to admit, even to herself, that anyone or anything frightened her, so she had simply stayed away from him. 

But something had just changed. 

She drew a breath at his throat and tasted the tobacco, the liquor and the smell of the man himself. He was human. He wasn't invulnerable. His pulse against her temple was reassuringly real. He was flesh and blood, and grieving. Perhaps for the first time in her life, she felt empathy. Who'd ever have believed it would be for someone as untouchable as Jet Black? 

She felt him loosen and try to pull away. Was he suddenly uncomfortable with this intimacy? Maybe. But this new taste of being needed was too sweet. She wasn't ready to let him wash it away. She wanted to know that he really did need her closeness--that she had something of value to give him. 

She pulled him back firmly, and it pleased her that he did not resist. Her bracelets slid up her arm and jingled as she traced her hand back along the line of his shoulder. She'd never even imagined touching him. It was strange and somehow exhilarating to feel his bone and muscle, one as hard as the other, under her fingertips. She feathered a finger up one of the muscles forming the taut "V" at his collarbone. He drew a quick breath and stiffened. Quickly, she cupped the back of his head, drew his face down, and caught his lower lip in her teeth. 

He did not respond immediately, but when he did, she nearly drowned in the enveloping power of his kiss. It was brief, and he pulled away enough to speak. "Faye," his voice was husky. She did not have to touch him to know the effect she was having on him. "You're upset. I'm not sure you know what you're doing here." 

She turned and straddled his hips, rising so that her breasts barely brushed his chin. His eyes widened momentarily, and his breath quickened. 

"Have I ever seemed like I don't know what I'm doing?" 

She lifted one of his hands, which had dropped in shock to either side of his hips, and spread his fingers over the curve of her waist. She felt them flex and then go rigid. "Faye," he said, looking tortured. "I'm not Spike." 

"I know." She led his hand down the curve of her buttock. 

"FayeI'm not sure this is a good idea." By now he didn't sound sincere or convincing. "There are other ways we can get through this without straining what little there is of our" he lost his words with a small yelp as she fearlessly slid her hand down and gripped the hardness straining against his shorts. "friendship!" 

He clutched her wrist, but did not remove her hand. "Faye" His teeth were clenched tight. 

"How do you know it might not make our friendship stronger?" she whispered, and slid her hand upwards. 

He signaled his surrender with a quiet groan, and pulled her hand hard against him. As she bent down to him, he brushed his mouth against her throat and exhaled a slow, warm breath. The thrill that shivered through her, knowing that she had so quickly made him forget his despair, was as delicious as anything she'd ever known. She could please him. She knew how to do that. And part of her that had until now been a stranger became wild at the thought that she could give him something that he could not give himself. He did need her, after all. 

Her hands were under his shirt, lifting it as she spread her palms and ran her fingers over the sparse, coarse hair fanned across his chest. His hands mirrored hers, unfastening her clothes with such smooth ease that she briefly wondered how often he had fantasized about doing just this. It made her smile again, made her feel powerful, worthy, and aroused to the point of pain. 

He shut his eyes and leaned his head back with a short sigh, letting her explore his contours. When she touched the edge of his chin and lifted his face up with a fingertip, he opened his eyes. The doubt tingeing the desire in them surprised and annoyed her. She didn't want him to be uncertain about this. She wanted him to lose himself in her, and not know anything else until she was done with him. 

She took his lip in her teeth again and bit him, none too gently, and it was as if she had provoked a crouching lion. The pain in his leg seemingly forgotten, Jet rose up and met her bite, enveloping her with his mouth and arms, and she hardly knew that he had risen over her and turned her on her back. She made a small sound of protest and tried to push him away, but he surged over her, his fingers at once powerful and gentle, silencing her. His hands electrified her. Wherever he touched, he set her afire. She had never felt hands like this. And as quickly as she had aroused him, she felt herself lost in a wild swirl of pleasure of his design, not hers. 

How long he played her secrets she had no idea. It was too long and too short a time before she could not bear the painful delight of it. Without a word from her, he knew. Huge, searing he came into her, moved with her rhythms, read her completely and answered her need until she screamed with release. Only then did he allow himself the same. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Faye lay silently, her head on his arm, and felt his quiet, even breaths moving in her hair. She didn't know how long they had been asleep, but she was sharply awake now. 

Incredible. How had he so completely overpowered her, made her forget her desire to master him and willingly give in to him? It wasn't like her to fall victim to a man. 

His face was close and relaxed, and she could at last see that he really was younger than he seemed. His skin was unlined, his hair and beard dark and soft. He looked vulnerable again, asleep beside her. 

But she knew better now. He would never allow himself to be controlled. Perhaps he didn't even know _how_ to let someone else guide him, even sexually. Even when she had tried to give him pleasure--to comfort him without wanting anything from him except a moment of surrender--he had forced her aside and taken over. He had used her own body against her, made it clear that he was in charge. 

She bit her lip, for a scant moment wondering if she was wrong to feel used. She had started it, after all. But did he think she was incapable of pleasing him on her own terms? Did he really think she was so helpless and worthless? 

A surge of anger sliced through her. Selfish! He was so self-centered that he didn't even know what she'd wanted from him. She pulled out from under his arm and slid down to sit on the floor where he had dropped her clothes. As she groped around and pulled them on, she heard him stir. His hand found the small of her back, and stroked up to her shoulder. For a moment, the tingling memory of what that hand could do made her pause. The feeling angered her, and she roughly shrugged him off. 

"Cold?" he said sleepily. "It's cold in here. Don't get dressed. Let's just go to your" 

"_Your_ bunk," she said shortly. "It's your bunk, isn't it? You've been sleeping on the couch ever since I got here, right? Maybe it's time you had your bunk back." She jerked the lace of her top tight, then felt around for her stockings. 

As he watched her feel around for her clothes and yank them on, his half-closed eyes widened in puzzlement. "Faye," he said at last. "Are you mad at me?" 

"Mad?" she said, glaring at him from above the curve of her folded leg as she pulled a silk stocking over it. "Why would I be mad? I should feel great, right? I mean, I've never had sex like that before. Why would I be mad?" 

Slowly, he sat up, wincing as he flexed the wounded leg. "I have no idea." 

She stopped dressing and sat staring at the ceiling. "That figures." 

He fumbled for the tee shirt he had draped over the bench and absently covered his lap. "What did I do to make you mad?" He sounded almost plaintive. "It sure seemed like you enjoyed that as much as I" 

"I wanted to give you something!" she snapped. "I wanted to make you feel better!" 

He looked as if he had been slapped. "Youyou did." 

"No I didn't!" she said. "_You_ did! You made yourself feel better. I was just a convenient outlet." 

His jaw dropped, and he gaped at her. 

"I can't give you money, Jet," she said, her voice rising. "And I'm no good at helping around here. I can't cook or clean or fix things. Hell, you don't even _like_ me. But I wanted to do something to make you feel good. I could have driven you as out of control as you just did me. But you couldn't accept that! Not even that! The one thing I _can_ give you, you threw right back in my face!" 

"You're not making any sense" 

Faye narrowed her eyes. "No, you wouldn't get it," she smirked humorlessly. "I didn't think you would. I just felt sorry for you, Jet. Just for once, _I_ wanted to help _you_." 

Her tone and words had the desired effect, and she had to force back a smile as he crossed his arms and turned his face away from her. The baffled look in his eyes had become cold and expressionless. "Well. This is new. I don't think I've ever been the victim of a mercy fuck before." 

She stood up and whirled on him. "It _wasn't_ a mercy" She cut herself short and rocked back. "Well, what if it was?" she sniffed, lifting her chin. "How does that make you feel, Mr. Perfect? Not very good, huh?" 

He slowly turned his glare on her. 

"How do you feel, huh? Patronized? Weak? Worthless? How about that! You're getting a little of your own medicine for a change, and you don't like it!" The flash of anger in his eyes made her wonder for a moment whether she had pushed him too far. But he did not rise or make a move towards her. 

"I don't understand this." His words were clipped. "You wanted it. And I'm going to have a hard time believing you didn't enjoy it." 

"That's just it!" she snapped. "It was great! It was the best sex I've ever had in my life! But I had nothing to do with it!" 

She felt a faint rush of triumph as his anger once again melted into confusion. But he quickly mastered his expression and made it an unreadable mask. 

"Do you have any idea what it's like to live with someone like you, Jet? Someone who can't ever let go or lose control?" His stillness infuriated her, made her want to strike him. But she was not fool enough to touch him in violence, except with words. "You smother everyone who gets close to you. You're always in charge. No one is ever allowed to make their own decisions or take their own actions around you. It's your way or no way!" 

She waited, watched her words pierce him despite his efforts to hide their impact. "Didn't one of us say this was a bad idea?" he said, his voice flat and emotionless. "Maybe one of us was right." 

"Oh, you're always right!" she said, singsong and sarcastic. "That's the problem!" 

"Are you finished?" 

"No! No, I'm not. You know what? I'm going to give you something after all, Jet." She arched her back, crossed her arms and sent a haughty look down her nose. "An earful you don't want. You know what you need, Jet? You need to let someone else feel like they matter. You need to stop using me and everyone else like props to make yourself feel big and strong and important." His look of shock goaded her, and as she leaned into her tirade, her short, dark hair bobbed forward at him, taunting. "You know what else, Jet? You're not strong at all. You're weak. You're afraid to owe anything to anyone. Because you'd be so easy to control that way. Because inside that big, macho man is nothing but fear of being left alone." 

He could not hide the wound that dealt him. "That'snot true." 

"Then why are you alone again, Jet? Everyone you supposedly cared about has left you. Ed. Spike. Even Ein! What kind of man gets dumped by his own _dog_! We're probably just the last in a whole parade of people who got fed up with being smothered and controlled, and finally had the guts to leave you." 

He stared stonily out the window. "I don't ask anyone to stay. And I prefer being alone." 

Her laugh was sharp and derisive. "You really believe that. Maybe you're such an emotional cripple that you've brainwashed yourself into _believing_ you like being alone! Smart move. If you're alone, there's no risk of getting in debt to anyone by actually letting them _do_ something for you!" 

"That's enough!" His brows were tight and low over his eyes. 

"I knew it!" she said, throwing a slender hand in the air. "You didn't hear a word I just said. You'll spend the rest of your life taking in mangy strays and smothering them with what you seem to think is _care_." Her lip curled around the word. "In the end, you'll be alone. Eaten up by your own caring." Her voice lowered to an unsympathetic hiss. "I_sorry_ for you." 

"Keep that very sincere pity for yourself." His voice was lifeless. "I don't need it." 

"No, of course not! You don't need anything from me! You don't need anything from anyone!" 

He met her icy eyes steadily, but did not answer. 

"So since you're fine on your own...." She waited, half hoping for some sign that he had understood her, and might break down. But there was no such sign. "then I'll be leaving. And this time, I won't be coming back. You're on your own, Tough Guy. At least until the next loser ends up on your doorstep. Just be ready to be left alone again after you've patched it up and fed it for a while." She spun on her heel and stalked away. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

He watched her sweep out of the deck, tall, graceful and strong. He closed his eyes, but blocking the sight of her retreating back only made the knifelike pain in his throat twist harder. He didn't need her. She was wrong. She was wrong about him. He hoped to God she was wrong. 

It was too damned cold on this ship. He pulled his tee shirt and shorts back on, but was still shivering enough to make his teeth chatter. It had to be the cold. There was no way that crazy female had been able to upset him that much. 

In the silence of the nearly empty vessel, it was impossible not to hear her banging around in her bunk--_his_ bunk, he corrected himself--packing her belongings. And some of his, no doubt. He didn't care. He fumbled around the cushions for his cigarettes, lit one and dragged deeply. Slowly, he released the smoke in a narrow stream. He _didn't_ care. It was the loss of Spike--not Faye--that was making that hard pain drill into his throat and behind his eyes. 

About an hour later, the thrum of the bay door motors vibrated the Bebop's hull, and everything touching it. At least she was bothering to open the doors this time, and not simply blasting through them. It wasn't out of consideration, he thought wryly. She certainly wasn't going to come crawling back to him for repairs again. 

The Redtail darted out from beneath the observation deck, hung in mid-space as the yellow-white of its afterburners sparked to life, and then arced out of his sight. 

He shivered. How had he let himself fall into that trap? How had Faye managed to fool and humiliate him so completely? Was he really such a naïve idiot? This was the worst yet. For a brief, warm moment, she'd seemed human and caring, and in the next she'd become a shrieking harpy with a block of ice where her heart should be. He sighed silently. Maybe she'd just gone crazy from the grief of losing Spike. Women could go out of their minds over things like that, right? But she was gone now, and it was over. It was a good thing he didn't care. He rose and limped out of the observation deck, leaving it in a haze of blue smoke. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

As he'd suspected, Faye had pretty much gutted his bunk. Anything remotely of value had not-so-mysteriously disappeared. The desk lamp, two sets of ISSP-issue handcuffs he'd let her borrow, an assortment of lock-picking tools--he was sure she'd make good use of those--had all gone missing. She'd even taken the laptop, though she thoughtfully had left a disc lying on top of the bare desk. He didn't have to guess what was on the disc, though as he picked it up to toss it into the drawer, he saw the quickly scrawled label, "Spike." He didn't want to think about that right now. 

Well, at least she'd left the sheets, a dirty tangle on the bed. A couple of hours ago, he would have happily tumbled into them with her. But now the thought of touching them was distasteful, and the smell of her perfume clinging to them was suddenly one of the most unpleasant sensations he could remember. Old Pavlov had been right about that aversion conditioning, he thought sourly. If he ever got near a woman wearing that perfume again, his involuntary reaction wasn't going to be pretty. He shuddered as he dumped every last washable thing down the laundry chute, and turned to collecting the trash strewn everywhere but in the trashcan. 

_What was I thinking? _

That's the problem. You weren't. Not with your head, anyway. 

An hour later, his old bunk was his again. And like the rest of the ship, it smelled of too much bleach. 

The galley was picked as clean of supplies as his bunk. One forlorn can of liver-flavored dog food stared up at him from the top shelf of the refrigerator. Nice touch, Faye. He wasn't that desperate yet. He'd let the whiskey burn a hole through his gut before he'd eat that. A bit more searching unearthed a box of half-stale saltines that had fallen behind a shelf. Better than nothing. He washed them down with chlorine-flavored tap water just as his hangover started to kick in. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

He could barely hear Coltrane's saxophone wailing at him through the walls as the hot shower roared across his ears. The water had made his wounded leg burn hellishly at first, but it felt better now that it had gone numb. He stared down, letting the cascade of water from his head wash over it. The thigh was swollen and bruised, but the wound itself was clean, and already showed signs of healing. He wondered how long it would take the rest of him to follow suit, especially now that he'd have little to do but wander aimlessly on the Bebop until he was able to hunt again. It was far too risky to take on even a minor bountyhead in his condition. 

He'd almost forgotten what it was like to hunt alone. For three years it had been Spike at his shoulder, the two of them working as smoothly together as a pair of wolves. He closed his eyes when the ache came back, and tried not to think. The water thundered against his back and neck. Momentarily, the thought of turning off the shower so there would be enough hot water for Ed and Faye automatically flicked through his mind. And then the reality slammed him again. He bent his head and let the hot water pummel him until it ran cold. 


	2. Dream by Tian Ning

This chapter, too, is by Tian Ning. 

Consider the usual disclaimers said. Although the overall story is rated PG13, this chapter is PG. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

**_Dream_**

The hiss of the vast, scaled body close by him was more of a feeling than a sound. A vague shape, shining dark enameled red, rolled past him, as grainy and dimly lit as the inside of his own eyelids. Its coils rose from the darkness of space and slid back into the oily blackness without revealing its true shape. The sound of the creature's breath--more a damp sensation against his scalp than a noise--brushed past him. It was seeking prey. That, he could feel. And though he knew the creature was blind to him, a cold line of fear threaded through his guts. 

The vision faded to another, of a long, flat plain. In the distance, a tall, slim figure cloaked in black was striding away from him. Even before he saw the face, he knew it was Spike. Under the ever unruly mop of black hair, his partner's face was grey and lifeless. He stared straight ahead, and gave no sign that he knew Jet was there. 

"Spike!" Jet opened his mouth, but the only sound to escape was a hollow whisper, too faint for even he himself to hear. The solid, charcoal-grey ground seemed to waver and grow liquid under Spike's feet. With each step, his legs sank deeper into the sea, though he did not seem to notice, even when he had sunk down until his chin parted the water as he moved. 

"Spike!" Jet's tried to scream a warning, but all that came was the impotent wheeze. 

And suddenly he was in a small, wooden boat. A shrieking storm blinded him, pelted him with searing rain. In his hand he held a single oar. Desperately, he thrust the paddle into the water, striking helplessly against the whitecaps and silently roaring Spike's name into the tempest. Music. There was music coming from inside the storm. He knew the song from his childhood. It seemed thousands of years ago. Aching sadness twisted around him, wrapped him, paralyzed him. His arms grew heavy, and the single paddle became a dead weight against the surging tide. 

There was a shape ahead of him. A head, floating in the waves. Spike. His hair was dry and waving as if in a summer breeze, though all around him was turbid with rain and wind. 

Jet opened his mouth, let fly another soundless yell, and struggled against his own leaden arms to reach his friend as the oar bent uselessly against the weight of the water. Though he was far behind Spike now, somehow he could see the side of his face. The eyes, distant and filled with sadness, were trained straight ahead at something beckoning him from the storm's still, purple eye. The music was coming from there. A woman's voice was singing. And as Jet scanned slowly forward to follow the train of Spike's gaze, a form took shape in the darkness of the cyclone. It was a woman, her long, pale hair rising, spiraling in the wind. Lit from within, her face was raised to the low sky, her mouth open. It was her voice that rang sweetly through the storm. 

The wind rippedthe air from his lungs. He could not breathe. The woman was glowing, unearthly. Her long, slender neck and shoulders sloped down to a dark form melding with the sea. He could not see it clearly until lightning, pale blue and distant, curled its light around the shape. A seal. The body of a seal. He blinked mutely in the darkness and rain. Another flash. No. Not a seal. It was a woman's body, tall, slender and beautiful, emerging from the skin of a seal. She looked impassively past Jet, turned her dark eyes on Spike's floating head, and reached out to him. 

He strained to scream a warning. "Spike! No!" But Spike was rising from the water, reaching for her, drawn in by the deadly song. And as Jet watched, the woman's arms lengthened and darkened, sprouted reddish, shining scales. Spike lifted his arms, enveloped her in them, closed his eyes. He did not see the smooth, pale shape of the woman become the coils of a giant serpent closing around him. 

The huge, wracking sobs of warning Jet hurled into the storm were shredded and thrown back at him. He watched, helpless, as the muscular coils wrapped around Spike and the woman, who had become neither herself nor the serpent--but both. 

_It's a dream._ Jet heard his own brain coaching him_. You can take control. You can save him._ He flung the oar aside,tensed his thighs against the flooded bow of the dinghy and leaped--but was yanked up short, caught in something wrapped around his arms and legs. Frantic, he swiveled his torso from side to side and glimpsed thick copper wires completely looped around his limbs, twisting them into ungainly positions. They were huge versions of the wires that he himself had so often used to train young bonsai trees, bending them away from the form nature had chosen and shaping them to his will. He strained against the wires, but could not move. His arms and legs had gone dead in the shining coils. A woman's hand, nails bright red, dropped down out of the darkness, at once life-sized and immense. Its fingers balanced a brush like the one he used to create bonsai, to bleach with lime-sulfur the living wood, exposed with his carving tools, and change its own color and form to what he had chosen for it. 

The dripping brush loomed close, hovered over his leg, and he watched, helpless, as its bristles smeared over the copper bindings. The flesh between the wires sizzled, bubbled and melted away to reveal white bone, pocked with oval holes. He screamed, strained upwards, struggling alone. By now, the loops of the red serpent had almost completely engulfed Spike, his face as peaceful as if he had been asleep in his mother's arms. 

And then the storm was gone. Jet stood in the stillness of a red rock canyon. He knew this place. It was Bull's homeand yet not Bull's home. The sky was blacker, the stars even more numerous than in the old shaman's asteroid sanctuary. 

Jet could neither walk nor move, for his limbs were numb, still strapped tight in the lengths of copper wire. Bull was nowhere to be seen, but his voice was suddenly close in Jet's ear. 

"Running Rock." 

He cast his gaze around, and finally found the old man perched high atop a cliff, overlooking his wire prison. 

"Running Rock," the medicine man again spoke the name he had given Jet as a child. "The time draws near when the rock will come to rest." 

"My friend is in danger," Jet found he could speak. "Help me get loose. I have to find him." 

"You might free the Swimming Bird. But you are more ensnared than he." 

Jet strained helplessly against the coils. "I can't get loose. Someone is trying to stop me. Help me!" 

"The coils are placed by your own hand. You must remove them yourself." 

Jet struggled against the paralysis, breathed in shallow, starving gasps and gave a garbled roar of frustration. "I can't!" 

"Find the White Deer and loose your bonds." 

There was a noise in the distance. A sharp, electronic sound, repetitive and insistent. He searched the sky, looking for its source. 

"The Swimming Bird calls to you through another's voice. Even in the coils of the Red Dragon, he lives. The Swimming Bird yet lives." 

As the sound grew louder, the sky and red rock faded to the bleak, patterned umber of closed eyelids. The noise blared and cut off sharply as Jet heard the automatic pick-up answer the call with a terse message in his own voice, "You know how to leave a message. Do it." 

He sucked in a long, shaky breath. He could not feel his arms or legs. He tilted his head and found that it was because their circulation had been cut off by a wild tangle of twisted sheet tourniquets that held him in the same awkward position he had dreamed. He must have been thrashing like a noosed cat to get himself stuck like this. He grimaced as he tried to wriggle blood and life back into his limbs, each one feeling as if it belonged to someone else. As his circulation slowly returned, he listened to the disembodied voice in the main room leaving its message. 

"Jet. Are you there?" It was Bob. "If you are, pick up now! I have some important information for you, and I won't be able to call again. It's about your partner. Jetpick up!" 

Jet nearly fell out of the bunk with the effort of throwing himself towards the door and hallway, and his limbs, burning with the annoying needles of returning sensation, still would not obey him. Groggy and winded, he dragged himself around the corner on all fours just in time to see Bob casting a furtive glance over his shoulder before turning back to the screen to utter. "Sorry, Jet. Can't stay on this line. Too risky." And the screen went blank. 

This time Jet's vocal chords had no trouble delivering a stream of curses. He reached the com and stabbed at the keyboard, desperately trying to activate the I.D. retrieval system, to no avail. Bob had called from a stream of anonymous IP's that would take Ed's expertise to unravel. He took a deep breath through his nose, swallowed back the rising bile, and cursed the ephemeral salve of the whisky bottle. The deep burn in his wounded leg was coming back. He crawled up to sit on the couch and clutched his throbbing head in his hands. _No more for me, thanks. I'm driving. _

The dream came back to him in slow waves. A dragon. The red dragon with Spike and the woman. Man, what the sleeping brain could do on a rip-roaring hangover and some stale saltines. He'd always been prone to wild dreams, but this one was the craziest yet. "You could be a bit more subtle with the metaphors," he chided himself. 

What else was there? It was fading quickly. Bull. Bull had been there. Yes. In a red canyon. _The Swimming Bird yet lives. _

Jet rubbed his scalp, slowly shook his head, and laughed out loud, the pressure of it making his swollen eyes ache. And to think he'd accused Faye of having gone out of her mind with grief for Spike. At least she probably was realistic enough to simply accept his death, and not make up ridiculous, wish-fulfilling dreams. He almost felt embarrassed. 

Why had Bob called? What had he said? _It's about your partner._

Adrenaline sent a chill from behind his ears all the way down his sides and curling into his empty belly. "No." he said flatly. "Don't be stupid. You saw the vid. Spike is" 

He could not bring himself to say it aloud. And somewhere, deep inside himself, he felt an ember spark to life. Dreams could be powerful messengers. He always had believed it, though he never could speak it. 

No. Spike was dead. 

Still, Jet was alive. And as long as his leg had him laid up, Jet had little to do. It might prove interesting to visit the scene of the crime and try to find out just what had happened. Certainly no harm in that. It might allow him to finally put this to rest. And he at least owed Spike a graveside visit, to say a final goodbye, though there probably wouldn't be a burial for a few days yet. Plenty of time to investigate. 

He stretched his legs, finally back to life, stood up and limped back to the observation deck. The Bebop hovered over the dark side of Mars. It would be another hour or so before he would be close enough for an easy Hammerhead drop to the city in the crater beyond the horizon. By then, he would be ready. 


	3. Sleeping Dragon by Kat

This chapter is by me (Kat). Enter Spike (at last!). Also enter my Mary Sue. Sorry, but since I consider Spike mine _(Kat dodges thrown objects),_ this is not a Faye/Spike story. It's a Gwen/Spike story. Since I haven't finished writing it yet, I really have no idea where those two will end up, but they start here. I hope Gwenny isn't too much a Mary Sue for you readers! I kinda like her. (No, she's nothing like me, just for the record.) 

Consider the usual disclaimers said. Although the overall story is rated PG13, this chapter is PG. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

**_Sleeping Dragon_**

The room was well-lit, almost painfully so. Three men, two in suits and one in a white lab coat, looked down on a fourth lying unconscious in a clear rectangular box, like a glass coffin. 

"Will he live?" asked one of the suits, the older of the two. His raspy voice sounded doubtful. It also promised trouble if the answer was negative. Cmdr. Bartholomew "Bart" Hitchcock of the ISSP hadn't come all this way to be foiled at the last minute by an incompetent doctor. 

He got the answer he wanted. The doctor grunted gloomily but said, "I can put him back together for you, yes. You didn't get him into the cryoshell in any big hurry, though, did you?" He tapped the read-out irritably. "Another few minutes would have been too late." 

The younger suit stiffened. "We were lucky to get him out at all, given the circumstances. It was like a war zone. Hell, it _was_ a war zone. The whole damned building was coming down, the main elevator was blown, and every survivor was armed to the teeth and nervous as cats in a dog kennel." 

"Colorful," the doctor said drily. 

Hitchcock said, "Roberts doesn't exaggerate, Chan. If anything, he understates the difficulty of the operation. Don't forget, we had to get him past our own people, some of whom were actually paying attention. We _were_ lucky to make it." 

Dr. Chan was unimpressed. "Is he worth it?" 

"Do you want the Red Dragons to die out?" It was a rhetorical question. All three men were on none-too-generous ISSP salaries, all three enjoyed lifestyles much more luxurious than their salaries warranted, thanks to the Red Dragon syndicate, and all three wanted it to go on just that way. "The organization lost the old men, then Vicious. This guy is their last hope, the only one who can really lead them, and the only thing holding the syndicate together right now is that they know he's still alive." 

"What about Baum? He'll tear the solar system apart looking for him." Harvey Baum was the ISSP commander on Mars, and had a violent hatred of all the syndicates. He'd already been poised to strike in the chaos he'd hoped would follow Vicious' takeover. When Vicious had proven to be a better leader than he'd expected, he sat back and waited, like a hungry tiger, and got a stroke of unbelievable luck when this man had gone in after Vicious and killed him. Baum was now happily sweeping up the scraps of the syndicate, or so he believed. 

But Lt. Roberts didn't seem concerned. In fact, he grinned. "Why would he be looking for this guy? Spiegel's dead." 

"Baum wouldn't believe that without a body." 

"Oh, there was a body." That was Hitchcock's raspy voice again. _Too many cigars,_ Chan thought absently. "We've got it all on vid, right down to zipping him into the body bag, and we'll even have a legit death certificate -- with your name on it, Doc. Hell, they're getting the tombstone ready now, and guess who's in charge of seeing to the burial? Lt. Roberts here. Once you work your surgical magic and bring him back to life, Spiegel's going to owe the three of us big time, and therefore the Dragons are going to owe us. Not a bad position to be in." 

Roberts shifted uncomfortably. Hitchcock glanced at him, giving him tacit permission to speak, and he said, "What concerns me, sir, is that the word on the street says Spiegel's fight with Vicious was personal, that it didn't have anything to do with the Dragons. He might not _want_ to take over." 

"That's bull. Nobody in his right mind would tackle Vicious in his own stronghold for a personal vendetta. No, he wanted to take over, all right. And we're going to see to it that he does. Nice and smooth. And then we can live like kings." 

"There's one problem," Chan said. Both ISSP officers looked at him as if he'd uttered a blasphemy. He scowled. "I'm a surgeon, a skilled surgeon. I'll save Spiegel. I'll even put him back together more or less as he was. But pre- and post-surgery, he is going to need constant care for some time, and I don't care how valuable he is, I'm not wasting my time being a nurse. I need an assistant." 

"You want us to get you a nurse?" 

"No. Another doctor. I want someone who would be able to react appropriately should an emergency arise. This isn't a nursing home case!" he scowled. "What other ISSP doctors are on the Dragon payroll?" 

"On Mars? You're it, Chan." 

"Bring someone else in, then. From Ganymede, maybe." 

"We can't do that. We can't be sure who can be trusted." 

"To hell with trusting him. You can terminate him once our job here is done. That _is_ your area of expertise, isn't it?" 

Roberts said, "I can arrange accidents, but we don't want eyes looking this way for any reason. What about some kind of virus or medical accident? Could you do that, Dr. Chan?" 

"What, and betray my Hippocratic Oath? No. I leave that stuff to you. Or bring in a Red Dragon assassin, if you don't have the taste for it." 

Hitchcock held up a hand to stop Roberts from saying anything more. "Very well, Chan. I'll find a way. Who would you like us to get?" 

Chan thought hard, staring down at his patient without really seeing him. "I know. Get Hammond -- Dr. Gwenyth Hammond. She's probably in the City East Clinic, patching up your wounded patrolmen. She's a fool, but she's a good clinician and she does what she's told without asking questions. And right now she's probably the only person in the whole of the ISSP who won't guess who this guy is." 

Hitchcock shrugged. "We'll get her." 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Gwen Hammond was at the clinic, but she was dealing with a case of grass fever that a patrolman's son had contracted on Europa. The take-down of the syndicate had been relatively bloodless, and she had some spare time to help out the family practice doctors in the front. She couldn't have been happier. Working for the ISSP, as her parents had before her, she was more accustomed to bullet and knife wounds, laser burns, and space sickness than anything else. A little boy with grass fever was a pleasant change. 

She gave the father a prescription and specific instructions, then sent him on his way. A nurse was handling the next patient, so she wandered off to the break room for a cup of coffee. As she passed her supervisor's office, she heard him make an odd sound. Like a whoop. She stuck her head in. "Bertie? Are you all right?" 

Dr. Mkambo was grinning. "I'm more than all right. Come take a look at this report from HQ, about the attack on the Red Dragons." 

She came to his side and stared at the screen, which was covered with fine print. "Jeez. Translate it for me, would you?" 

Mkambo said, "Oh, honey. It says I'm in _love_. Too bad the guy's dead." 

"Will you please make sense?" 

"OK. According to this, all that damage at the Dragons' building -- all those guys killed, all those explosions -- they were the work of one man. Just one." 

"Come on, Bertie. Get real. That's got to be a joke." 

"This is the official report. Take a look, that's Baum's code. They've even got a jacket on this guy. His name was Spiegel, Spike Spiegel." 

"Funny name." 

"You want to hear this?" 

"No, but you want to tell me. Go ahead." 

"Seems he used to be a Red Dragon, but got out about three years ago and became a cowboy. Partnered up with an ex-ISSP officer, which is interesting." 

"A cowboy?" 

"Bounty hunter, to you ignorant folks." 

"So was he after a bounty?" 

"Nope. Apparently his target was the new leader of the Red Dragons. He got him, too. Went through the building and all the guards like a hot knife through butter. What a _mensch." _

She sipped her coffee. It was awful, as usual when Bertie made it. "So if he's so great, why is he dead?" 

"Apparently the Dragons leader killed him. A fight to the death between the two of them. God, I would have loved to see it." 

"You're a gladiator at heart, Bertie." 

"Only in my fantasies, hon. Too bad I've got no courage," Mkambo grinned. "Hey, crime scene pictures." He gaped. "Holy shit. That building's gonna take a lot of repair." 

Gwen didn't see a blast-damaged building. She saw scattered bodies, and turned her head away. 

"Here's a picture of Spiegel. Cute. Too skinny, but cute." 

She patted his shoulder. "He's got a long nose. That's why you think he's so cute. You love guys with long noses." 

A pop-up directive appeared on the screen, and Gwen discreetly moved away so Mkambo could read it. He opened it, and a moment later he swore. "New orders. Dammit, Hammond, you've been _reassigned." _

"Me? Where?" 

"Research, is all it says. Special assistant to Dr. Emil Chan." 

"Chan?" She hated Chan. The man was a bully who demanded perfection from everyone but himself. "There must be a mistake. I'm not research, I'm clinical." 

"The order's got your name on it." Mkambo shrugged. "I wish it didn't. We need you here a hell of a lot more than they do. But you were requested specifically, and the order's signed by Baum. Pack your stuff. And don't gripe, it's a promotion." 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

By the end of the day, Gwen was sick of hearing about Bertie's new hero, the late great Spike Spiegel, and she was tired of hearing him gripe about how his workload would double because they wouldn't replace her at the clinic for at least a month, knowing headquarters. 

As she stuffed her few office belongings into a box, she thought that her parents, if they were still alive, would be delighted by this. They'd always wanted her to work her way up, out of the clinics and into the upper ranks of the ISSP. They'd never understood that getting her M.D. was as far as she was willing to go to satisfy their ambitions for her. She had no ambitions for herself. She enjoyed clinical work, helping people, making them feel better. And she wanted out of the ISSP, which had all the faults of a big organization. Her parents had been dead 10 months. When it was a full year, she planned to resign. She owed them that much respect, but no more. 

Now it looked as if the ISSP was going to make her last two months into a living hell. That figured. 

She reported to HQ in the morning and got two unpleasant surprises. The first was that whatever project Dr. Chan was working on, it was top secret, and for the next couple of weeks she wouldn't even be able to leave the lab compound for any reason. She had already gone through the usual ISSP rigamarole of lie detector tests, signing her life away, promising her first-born son, blah-blah-blah, before they sprang that on her. Then, to add the proverbial insult to injury, when she finally got through the swearing-in part and reported to the lab, it turned out her duties weren't research at all. They were _nursing_. She'd be taking care of one patient, in cryosleep, right here in the lab, for 16 hours a day. 

She looked down at the patient, suspended in the cryoshell. _Odd, he looks familiar. I wonder why?_ But she was too upset to think on it. "You must be kidding," she said to Chan. 

"I don't joke, Dr. Hammond." 

No, actually, he didn't. That was a hallmark of Emil Chan. No sense of humor. "Why me?" 

"I needed a good clinical doctor who was both responsible and discreet." 

"So who is this guy? Why's he so important?" 

"You don't need to know that." 

What he meant was, _You don't want to know that._ No problem. Gwen had not spent her life taking risks. "OK. So what do I call him?" 

"John Doe." 

"Great." _How very original, Emil. _

He outlined her duties, and she hoped the compound had a good library. If not, she was going to get really, really bored. After he was sure she was perfectly clear (she deliberately acted dense, simply because he so obviously expected it), he let her view the patient and punch up his chart. That woke her up. "Holy shit. What _happened_ to this guy?" 

"A bar brawl." 

"What about that?" she said, indicating a line on the chart with one finger. The corresponding line on the patient was much more grim than the words and numbers on the screen. "Somebody in that bar have a butcher knife?" 

She watched him wrestle with giving her accurate information to work with, versus the compulsive secrecy. "A sword." 

It had to be the truth. It was too outlandish for a Chan lie. He didn't have that much imagination. "Interesting patrons in that bar," she muttered, scrolling down the rest of the chart. Chan would operate to remove the bullet and do the vascular and organ repair work as soon as the cryodogs had done their job and the patient was stable enough to survive it, probably another two or three days. She would assist, and she had a feeling she would be the _only_ person assisting. This had to be an ISSP undercover operator who'd run into trouble on his assignment. _Big_ trouble. He must have some pretty important news locked away in his unconscious brain, for the ISSP to be spending this kind of money on him. 

Which brought up an interesting question, something to occupy herself with while holding this vigil. Depending on what the patient might say when he came out of the coma, Chan might or might not have the lab under surveillance. She'd rather they didn't, since she preferred doing certain things without some goofball watching her do them. She asked Chan, and was told of course the room was under constant surveillance, but she wasn't so sure. When he left, she could find out. People tended to forget she was just as much Eddie Hammond's daughter as Dr. Agatha Hammond's. She'd learned a lot from her father. Some of it was even useful. Dad had been a bit paranoid. 

After going through the procedures with her one last time, Chan left, promising to return later with some reading material for her. That he'd bring it himself, and not send some flunky, told her a lot. She made a silent bet with herself that this whole thing was so secret, they wanted no official record and were trusting no one with surveillance. Thirty minutes after Chan left, she'd done a sweep of the entire lab, according to the procedure her father had always followed. She won the bet; there was no surveillance, either sound or vid. These people were taking risks. Or they thought she was an idiot. 

She sighed. Probably the latter. It wouldn't be the first time. 

Naturally, Chan still hadn't shown up with the reading material. She went to the cryoshell and leaned on the edge, on her elbows, and stared down at her patient. _What do you have locked up in that handsome head of yours, that makes you so important? _

He _was_ handsome, too, in a quirky sort of way. He had a fine-boned face with a long nose that had been broken at least once, not pretty, but the kind of face you didn't get tired of looking at. Large eyes, too, although she couldn't see the color, and lots of black hair. That he was young and fit went without saying -- otherwise he'd never have made it into the shell, not with those injuries -- but even his build was quirky, long-legged and very lean, yet wide and deep in the chest. 

Very attractive, all told. He looked interesting, maybe even fun. But that was probably her over-active imagination. She had enough of that quality to make up for Chan's lack. If this guy really was an ISSP undercover agent, "interesting" and "nice" were not going to be part of his personality. 


	4. Tharsis by Tian Ning

Back to Jet! He is about to get some intriguing and dangerous information. This chapter is by TianNing.

Again, we don't own the Bebop characters, including Bob. Although the overall story is rated PG13, this chapter is PG.

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_**Tharsis**_

More than two hours had dragged by since Jet had stationed himself across the street from the gutted Red Dragon headquarters. Hands in his pockets, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, the sole of his foot propped against the wall, he hoped he looked like just another of the casual gawkers camped there. So far, no one he recognized had shown up at the site. 

There was no reason to be so edgy, he told himself. The Red Dragons were finished, buried in that smoking rubble. There was no one left to care if he poked around for information about Spike's death. 

"_Can't stay on this line. Too risky." _Bob's last transmission echoed in his head. Old instincts tugged at him; adrenaline tightened his gut. It was a hunt, like any other. He flicked his cigarette butt onto the street. If prey would not come to him here, then he'd move closer to the watering hole. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

"Mr. Black," the bounty clerk's round, bespectacled face was all practiced sincerity. "I was sorry to hear about your partner." 

"Yeah," Jet glanced at the other clerks and officers shuffling paperwork at their desks and wished the clerk hadn't greeted him that way. He glanced down at his hands, spread across the desk, then fixed the man's gaze and spoke quietly. "Look, Ernie, I wonder if you could answer a couple of questions for me." 

"About the attack?" Ernie asked too loudly. "There's not much to tell that hasn't already been told a hundred times on the news. He pretty much sprayed the place with." 

"Not that," Jet interrupted, lowering his voice still more in the hope that Ernie might do the same. "I mean about the body. And the service. He had no next of kin that I know about. And I just wanted to make sure he wastaken care of." 

"Oh, that!" said Ernie, leaning back with a stricken look. "I'm sorry, Mr. Black. I didn't mean to be insensitive." He fiddled with his pen, but didn't offer any information." 

"Well?" Jet said at last. "Any public information?" He glanced surreptitiously at the other clerks from under his brows, and noticed that a couple of them were looking over. Whether from boredom or interest, he could not tell. 

"Oh! Let me ask the supervisor," Ernie rose, scraping the legs of his chair across the floor with a screech that made the other clerks cringe and send him withering looks. "She'll know more than I do." 

"Uh" Jet was already regretting coming here. "That's okay, Ernie. I'll just" 

"It'll only take a second," Ernie bustled off. "Just wait right there." 

Jet rolled his eyes and shuffled uncomfortably, uncertain whether he would draw more attention now by staying or leaving. He gazed idly over the heads of the clerks, wondering if anyone had taken undue notice of him. It had been a while since he had been so conscious of his distrust in anything ISSP. 

Ernie was back, waving a sheet of paper. "Mr. Spiegel was buried this morning before sunrise, Mr. Black," he called across the room, making Jet wince. "Here's all the information we have." 

Jet stared for a moment as the words registered. "Thismorning? That's impossible. The body's barely cold. They can't have had time for a thorough autopsy." 

"I only deliver the message, Mr. Black," said Ernie, puffing defensively. "The ISSP prides itself on efficiency. I'm sure whatever data forensics needed was taken promptly. Your partner took a lot of bodies with him, many with no known next of kin. I'm sure you know how expensive and time-consuming it is to dig graves in this rock-hard area. Time is money, Mr. Black." He blinked up at Jet. "Here's the address and the plot number, if you wish to pay your respects." He folded the sheet into thirds, creased the edges, and thrust it over his desk to Jet. 

Jet unfolded the paper and read it. "The pauper's cemetery!" A flush of anger heated his ears. "They could have at least waited to see if anyone came to claim him." 

"I don't make the rules or give the orders, Mr. Black," said Ernie. "I'm afraid this the best I can do. If you wish to file a complaint," he pulled out the pen perched behind his ear and pointed with it, "that office is three doors down the hall to the left." 

Jet looked up from the page to see that more of the clerks were staring now. "Thanks," he snapped, then spun on his heel to leave. As he stumped down to the street, Jet refused to look over his shoulder, and tried to convince himself that no eyes were following his back. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

The headstone was distressingly simple. "S. Spiegel. 2042 - 2071." Hot, dry wind nipped at the rectangle of half-yellowed sod they had dropped over the fresh grave, which looked no different from a dozen others in the same row. The place was practically deserted. There was only the unshaven caretaker at the gate, whose eyes followed him with a sullen, disinterested gaze, and a teenage girl wandering from grave to grave, scattering flower petals over the newest ones. Jet watched her for a moment, wondering who had hired her to perform this lonely Martian ritual. Even from a distance, she looked bored. 

He leaned heavily against his crutch and stared down, unfeeling, at the stone. "Hey, Spike," he murmured. "Hope you found her on the other side, buddy. Hope at least one of us is happy." 

He heard the scuff of the girl's feet before he saw that she had made her way to this row of graves. She briefly made eye contact. "Hey, Mister," she said, nodding towards the grave. "Mind if I do my job?" 

He stepped back, allowing her to toss petals onto the grave, then moved forward again as she sauntered on along the row. _Kind of a nice tradition_. The white and yellow petals jumped slightly in the breeze, then began to blow away down the walk. Orange. There was something orange emerging from the petals as they flashed away in the wind. His breath stuck in his throat as he recognized the bit of orange paper, folded into the shape of a crane. 

Without turning his head, he strained his eyes as far as he could to either side. No one. Slowly he bent down, snatched the crane just as the wind began to tumble it across the turf, and crushed it into his palm, unwilling to unfold it where he might be seen. It was the old signal that a small fraternity of ISSP cops--those not on syndicate payroll--used to communicate only when open contact was very dangerous. He looked after the girl, but she seemed oblivious to the significance of the paper crane someone had paid her to deliver. Her posture suggested only that she was intent on finishing her rounds and getting out of there. 

He stared down at the grave with a growing feeling of unease. Slowly, carefully, he went down on one knee beside it, and while one hand scattered the fleeing petals back onto the grave, the other dug surreptitiously at the edge of the sod. The soil underneath was loose for about an inch before he met resistance. His fingertips searched for a moment, but found the same thing as far as they reached. Slowly he rose, flicked the dirt from his fingers, and with the end of his crutch, tamped the sod back down. Under the thin cover of loose soil lay solid Martian rock that had never been disturbed. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Jet squinted down at the address on the unfolded bit of orange paper as he crossed the street. _Could have picked a cheaper place_, he thought, doffing his hat and sunglasses at the door. The place was all leather, brass, and smoked mirrors. There were few patrons at this early afternoon hour, but he felt their attention turned on him almost before his eyes had adjusted to the dark. He straightened and tried not to limp as he moved towards the familiar face in the back corner booth. 

"You came all the way from Ganymede just to see me?" Jet grinned as he gripped Bob's hand. 

"Don't flatter yourself," Bob returned with a weary smile. "I'm finally cashing in some vacation days. God knows I need it." 

"Sure looks that way." 

"Wish I could enjoy the time off," said Bob. He swigged the dregs of the pint he'd apparently been nursing for a while, and waved at the seat across the table. "Join me?" When Jet had settled, he added quietly, "No one followed me. The place is clean." 

"That's an understatement," said Jet, scanning the expensive light fixtures. "A little fancier than your usual hangouts, isn't it? Good thing you're buying." 

"Upscale is safer around Tharsis." He shrugged. "And if anyone was trying to find me, this would be the last place they'd look." 

"Why should you be looking over your shoulder?" asked Jet, as he gestured to the waiter for another pint for Bob, and one for himself. "Things ought to be quieting down over the next few weeks after what just happened uptown." 

"You wish," said Bob. "Things are just starting to get ugly. And like it or not, a lot of the focus is on you." 

Jet grinned humorlessly. "I'm flattered." He tapped his cigarette against the table before lighting it. "I never knew you had such delusions of my grandeur." 

"You can kid around, but you'd better listen to me," said Bob. He pointed at the cigarette and asked almost plaintively. "You got another one of those?" Jet shook another cigarette out towards Bob. "Thanks. I quit, so I haven't got any on me." 

"You, too, huh?" Jet flicked a matchbook across the table, and watched Bob strike up. He hoped he was imagining the slight tremor of Bob's hands. "Won't guarantee you a longer life, you know." 

Bob sent a sympathetic glance over a puff of smoke as he shook out the match. "Sorry about Fad." 

"Ah, well." Jet waved his fingers dismissively, not wanting to revisit that painful memory just now. "Gotta die of something. So. What've you got for me?" 

"The past two days have been busy for the syndicates. Shouldn't come as any surprise to you." 

"Guess the old ISSP guard must be pretty nervous right now." 

"You have no idea. After the Dragons took such a major hit, the lesser clans moved in quick to see what ISSP action they could score. Turns out they're not interested in the old ISSP whores. They want new blood that won't turn around and bite them in the butt. I've been approached twice already. 'Course I couldn't refuse outright. Not and avoid ending up on their List." 

Jet shook his head ruefully. "Time off sounds like a good idea right now, eh?" 

The waiter set two pints in front of them, and slid silently away. Bob watched until he was out of earshot. 

"I'm not the only one. There's a lot of hungry cops out there right now who lost a steady source of income for just looking the other way. Lot of deals being struck now that neither of us likes to see." 

"Is that what this is about?" asked Jet, relaxing. Somehow, the idea of bailing Bob out of trouble seemed a lot less dangerous than what he'd been imagining. "You need a cover to help you avoid syndicate entanglements." He gave a short laugh. "Is that why you said this was about my partner? Don't tell me you're interested in bounties!" 

"Oh, right." Bob's tired face could muster little more than a tightening of his lips. "Just call me Cowboy Bob." He ran his thumb along the rim of his glass and grew serious. "Come on, Jet. You know I wouldn't bait you like that. When I said it was about your partner, I meant it. There's something weird going on. Really weird. As inI have some pretty good evidence that your friend is alive." 

Jet stared at him for a moment. "That's ridiculous. You saw the vids." 

"Yeah, I did. Never seen anyone run with a body bag before." 

The grainy video image suddenly replayed in Jet's head. Cops running with the body bag in the background. Not exactly typical _S.O.P. _for handling a corpse that had been dead for nearly two hours. He silently smacked himself for not consciously registering it before, but said only, "That doesn't prove anything." 

"I don't expect you to believe me just from that. But trust me, he's not in that grave you went to today." 

"I already know that much." 

Bob fixed him with a long stare. "So you already have a hunch about this." 

"Yeah, I have a hunch his body's of some use to someone." Jet rolled the tip of his cigarette against the bottom of the ashtray. "That's creepy enough." 

"Dead or alive, he's in an ISSP cryo tank somewhere," said Bob. "The brass who already had cushy deals with the Red Dragons know he's valuable. In fact, a lot of them think your buddy's little stunt was an attempt to take over the clan." 

Jet rolled his eyes sideways. "Are we talking about the same guy here? Don't get me wrong. You couldn't have a better man at your back in a fight. But to say Spike was too lazy to take on that kind of responsibility would bea major understatement." 

"Whatever." Bob took a long draught of his beer. "But that might not matter to the guys who want him alive. All they know is what they hear from the surviving young blood of the Dragons. Your pal seems to be some kind of icon to them. Word is they've been waiting for years for him to come back. There's even evidence that he had inside support when he went in for that last shootout. No one wanted that new guy who assassinated the Van to be head of the Dragons, and your partner was their only hope to take him out--and then take over." 

Jet laughed under his breath. "Come on. Spike and I kept to ourselves a lot, but I would have known about that. The Dragons thought he was dead until he blasted in and took out their leader." 

"The Dragons knew he was coming, and so did the ISSP." Bob's face was serious, and his voice stern. "Once he showed up, he was marked. They wanted him. They took him. The ISSP Dragon whores aren't interested in seeing their system fall apart, and they don't want to have to negotiate new deals. Hell, a lot of them think they're going to end up poured into the foundation of one of those nice, new highrises going up all over town with laundered syndicate money. These old guys are desperate to save their asses. If they can let the young Dragons know their hero is alive and ready to take over--and if they can make the other syndicates believe it--they at least buy themselves some time. Your buddy is their best hope." 

"They'd be disappointed, even if he wasn't a corpse," he said. "That was one guy who had no interest in power over anything but himself." He suddenly found that he was unwilling to say Spike's name aloud. 

"I'm telling you that doesn't make any difference to them. They just need him as a front man. And if he doesn't want to cooperateI don't have to tell you they have their own ways of getting what they want." Bob fixed him with a hard stare. "As in hostages. Are you catching my drift here, Jet?" 

Jet shook his head in disbelief. "Aw, Bob. I've never known you to buy into conspiracy theories. This could just be a story cooked up by what's left of the Dragons to keep the other syndicate clans off balance and guessing about where they stand with the ISSP." 

"I wish it was," said Bob. "But I doubt it. I have something else to give you." 

Jet traced a line in the condensation on his glass, but did not react. 

Bob leaned forward until his collarbone was pressed against the edge of the table. Even in this light, he looked more haggard than Jet had ever seen him. "Have a peanut," he said, pushing the bowl towards Jet. "The little black ones are pretty good." 

Jet reached into the bowl, took a small handful of nuts, tossed a few into his mouth and smoothly pocketed the tiny, black disk he had pinned between his ring and pinkie fingers. 

"Right from Baum to you," said Bob, his voice low. "Dangerous shit." 

"And Baum wanted me to have it? Why the hell is he dragging me into this?" 

"I already told you," Bob sighed wearily. "You're already in. Just have a look at that when you get back to your ship." 

"You going to at least tell me where it came from?" 

Bob sighed impatiently. "Remember Baum's computer geek? That annoying little guy from New Seattle?" 

"Cecil?" Jet gave a slight wince. "Ugh. Yeah, he's kind ofunforgettable." 

"Well, once in a while he does hit pay dirt. A few months ago, all the P.C.'s on the fourth floor started crashing every day or two. Real pain in the ass. Cecil was running around like a headless chicken, trying to fix the problems, reinstalling hard drives, the whole nine yards. Nothing seemed to fix it." Bob paused and took a deep drag on his cigarette. "Seems he was working really late in the accounting office one night--no one else in the office--when some of the machines started working like mad, with no obvious software running. Cecil didn't think anyone could have hacked in through his firewalls. He figured someone on the inside was making a few bucks on the side sending spam or something. But once he managed to get in and download some of what was passing through the machines, he nearly shit his pants. 

"Someone had set up the desktops to rout data back and forth from ISSP to Dragon headquarters every night after everyone had supposedly gone home. When Cecil reported it to Baum, he took Cecil off all his other duties and had him do nothing but download and decrypt everything he could intercept." 

"If the Dragons hadn't wanted these files found and decrypted, you wouldn't have them." 

"Maybe," he spat a narrow stream of smoke . "But you're in there, Jet. And Harvey wants you to watch your back." 

"Nice to know he still cares after all these years," said Jet sourly. 

"He cares about all us old-timers, in his own tight-assed way," said Bob. "If the stuff on that disk is real, then whatever is left of the Dragons knows about you. You're seen as a threat to them." 

"Why the hell didn't Baum contact me himself?" 

"And get his hands dirty?" Bob gave a wry laugh. "You know him better than that. He knew I could get these to you without drawing any extra attention to you. And so far, no one seems to be watching little ol' Bob." 

"Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, chasing around a dead man." 

Bob lowered his voice still more. "The files on that disk should at least get you wondering about that." 

Jet snorted. "Medical records are easy to fake." 

"Well, you're the one with the fancy college degree in forensics," Bob tapped the long column of ashes off his cigarette. "You figure it out." 

For a moment, Jet watched his old comrade shadowed against the mirrors. Crouched in the darkness against the big, leather seat, the rangy cop looked shrunken. Jet briefly wondered if he looked as old as Bob. He searched for something that might shore up his friend's spirits, but found nothing to say. 

Bob gave a long sigh and raked knobby fingers through his hair. "Fifteen years to retirement. Long time to be looking over your shoulder." He glanced up at Jet with his familiar spark of humor. "You taking applications yet? Maybe I need a career change, after all." 

Jet raised an eyebrow and feigned seriousness. "Let's see how your application looks first. If you can take regular five week intervals on the wagon because you're out of cashand stand my cooking every night," he grinned. "you're in." 

"Gah!" Bob grimaced. "Just lost my taste for adventure!" His mood had lightened with the very act of giving over the disk. "Months in space with nothing to look at but you!" 

Jet's grin relaxed and he looked down at his pint. "Yeah, it's a great life." 

Bob took a swig of beer and lipped the foam from his moustache. "Maybe you should take some time off, too," he said. "Just lie low for a while, 'til things cool off, you know? Who knows? After all this, maybe you'll quit chasing bounties and come back to the force." 

"Nah." Jet's mind was elsewhere now, roving the empty halls of the Bebop, and not liking it. "If I change my line of work now, it won't be going back to the past." 

"I figured," Bob set down his pint with a resigned half smile. "Until you try, I guess you never know what kind of new tricks you can teach an old Black Dog." 

"For the moment," Jet patted the hip pocket into which he had slipped the disk. "I'll stick to the old ones." 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

_Magnify_. Jet typed in the command. _Enhance. Play._ For the third time, he watched disembodied hands lift Spike into the bag. Once again he noted how loose the face, how flexible the neck and shoulders. 

From the first file on the disk Bob had given him--a closed-circuit video of Spike's initial charge through the Dragon's headquarters, and a long-distance view of the final battle--he knew that his partner had been completely exhausted at the end, just before the sword had sliced through his belly. Before that final blow, both combatants had been so spent that they were barely able to stand and hold their weapons steady. Yet nearly three hours after the battle, when Spike was zipped into the bag, the body was still supple. It didn't make sense in the hot Martian atmosphere that such depleted muscles wouldn't have gone more quickly into _rigor mortis_. 

He had been almost loathe to open the other files after seeing that one. What would he do if there really was evidence that Spike was alive? He wasn't sure what he knew or believed any more. For all he knew, Spike really had gone to take over the Dragon Clan. And what then? What could be gained by his knowing all this? 

He clicked back to the main menu and scrolled across dozens of documents. File name _cryo.dv_. Big file. That might yield something. Fidgeting with his cigarette, he waited while the viewing program loaded. _Play_. 

It was another closed-circuit video, but of better quality than the one from the Dragon headquarters camera. It looked like a hospital or lab. Slowly, the camera panned to the center of the room, scanning over an impressive array of high tech medical equipment. Gradually, a large, bluish tank came into view. An Asian-looking man in a lab coat was standing by the tank and talking into a palm recorder. _Magnify. Enhance._ Before the camera began to pan in the other direction, Jet saw that the object floating in the tank was longer than the guy in the lab coat and couldn't be mistaken for anything but a naked human body. 

The scene switched to the view from another surveillance camera, this one closer to the cryo tank, and scanning back and forth from a different angle. As the camera's eye glided past the cloudy blue fluid in the tank he saw the vague outline of a face. He could not deny that it did bear an uncanny resemblance to Spike. Sensors and wires bristled from every surface and orifice of the floating body, and the computer monitors above the tank, their specifics unreadable at this distance, pulsed with the rhythms of life. In a moment, the tank and its monitors were lost to the panning camera's line of sight. 

"Holy shit," he breathed, considering all the reasons anyone might have gone to so much trouble to fake this so convincingly, and finding none of them very plausible. Still, this would be exactly what the Dragons would want the Monsoons and Tigers to see if they were sending a message that they were still alive and strong. The supposed Dragon icon was in safe storage, alive and in recovery, with an army of loyal young Dragons ready to follow him. 

He'd already viewed several hours worth of background information, and now knew the name of the white-haired upstart who had taken out Spike. Vicious. He'd heard Spike say the name a few times. It was the only subject that could elicit true venom in his usually taciturn partner. 

He leaned back and tapped at the keyboard, re-opening another file--discomfitingly labeled _leverage.doc_--he had already studied well. As Bob had intimated, his picture and bio were there, along with Faye's and Ed's and a number of others he didn't know. A few were under surveillance. Some had contracts out on them. Most were recently dead. He no longer wondered at Bob's nervousness about being the disk's courier. 

Julia had her own file. He finally was able to put a face to that name, and had been more than a little stunned when the blonde beauty had stared blankly out at him from the screen. Instantly, his dream returned to him, and though the selkie in it had not had a face, it seemed that hers would have fit perfectly. 

He scrolled down to the line reading "Status: Deceased." Which faction had killed her? Hit men from the new Dragon leader--that "Vicious" character? Had it been Spike's own followers--posing as the other side--hoping to fan Spike's hatred into full flame? Had it been a simple case of revenge? Or had they removed Julia as a possible obstacle to Spike's willingness to take control of the clan? He supposed if that were the case, then Faye, Ed and even he himself might fall into the same category. The megabytes of files held no answers. 

He leaned back, bathed in the blue light of the screen, and rubbed his eyes wearily. _Quit_. As he typed the command, his lips drew back taut_. No, not quit. Seems like something's just starting, after all. _

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Alone on the viewing deck, he gazed blearily out at the reddish crescent of Mars' horizon. It probably wasn't safe for him to stay here. Whatever was happening was going on below him right now, perhaps in Tharsis, perhaps in one of the outposts. If whoever had Spike's body knew he had been sniffing around, it wouldn't take them long to find him. And not just him. Ed was wandering around somewhere back on Earth, and Faye was off causing trouble only God knew where. 

"They left," he said aloud, crushing his cigarette against the ashtray at his hip. "If they want to be on their own, then it's not my job to look after them." But even as his words fell into the silence, the inside of his head argued with him. _They're your friends. They need your protection. You're the only one who can warn them. _

"Screw 'em," he told himself aloud. "They don't want your help, and they don't want to be protected. Why do you think they left in the first place? Faye said it loud and clear: to get out from under your overprotective smothering." 

_You know the right thing to do. _

A flash of his dream returned again, more a feeling than an image. Laughing Bull. He grinned widely in the darkness. _You really have gone off the deep end,_ he told himself. _Ever since you were a kid, you didn't trust the old man. Why on earth are you thinking of him now? _

He closed his eyes and remembered that time years ago when he and Spike had gotten drunk and started telling stories. He'd told Spike about the old shaman who had been a fixture in the Canadian hills where he'd spent much of his childhood and youth. Intrigued by the stories, Spike had insisted on gambling--with an introduction to the old man as the prize--and Jet had lost the bet. Grumbling all the way to Bull's asteroid, and warning Spike not to believe the mumbo jumbo he was about to hear, he had later watched, bemused, as the two had talked through the night and hit it off like old school chums. He was almost sorry he'd introduced them after that, since Spike had then taken to asking the old man for mystic guidance on everything from bounty hunts to gambling debts. It was just foolishness. He momentarily wondered just how much responsibility old Bull might bear for Spike's last stunt. __

Go to Laughing Bull. 

Jet smacked the palms of his hands against his face, and slowly dragged them down over his eyes. "Why the hell not?" he asked the window. "Nothing else is making sense right now, so why not go all the way? Maybe I should do a Rain Dance before I leave to wash away my trail." He gave a great, roaring groan as he rose, then went to the bridge to set course for that lonely asteroid he could find in his sleep. 


	5. Beans by TianNing

We're still with Jet, who is about to be sent on a journey far different than he imagined. This chapter is by TianNing.

Again, we don't own the Bebop characters. All other characters are the creations of TianNing. Although the overall story is rated PG13, this chapter is PG.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

_**Beans**_

Clouds of dust kicked up by the Hammerhead's thrusters were still blowing across the crude landing strip when Jet reached the circle of boulders that was Laughing Bull's camp. The place was even quieter than usual, though the smell of cooking beans told him someone was home. 

"Yo! Bull!" he called from the arched gateway. "You here, Old Man?" 

Near the front of Bull's yurt, beside a smouldering cooking fire, a small form moved and caught Jet's eye. "Andrew! Is your grandfather here?" 

The boy stood up and walked purposefully towards Jet. "He said you'd be coming," said Andrew. "He made me wait so you'd be sure to get his message. Want some supper?" 

Jet half smiled. "Your grandad keeps a pretty meager pantry. Sure there's enough?" 

Andrew smiled. "There's enough. Grandfather knows the size of your appetite. He had me take the Dragonfly out to Granger's Crossing yesterday to stock up." 

"Ah. Then I guess he won't be needing this?" Jet grinned and drew a flask of expensive liquor from his breast pocket. 

Andrew held out his hand. "There's always room for that." 

Jet reached into his front pocket and pulled out a small jackknife, its handle inlaid with polished Martian stones. "Brought something for you, too," he said. "A little better than the old one you were using last time." 

The boy's eyes shone as he accepted the gift. "Thank you, Running Rock," he said solemnly. "You have always been generous to my family." 

As the two settled by the fire, Jet wondered why he felt almost relieved that Laughing Bull was not here. At least it meant he wouldn't have to indulge in some mystic journey right away. He watched in silence while Andrew ladled beans into two bowls, and didn't speak until they were midway through the meal. 

"So where's the Old Man?" he said at last. 

"You're not keeping track of the dates," said Andrew, with light reproach. "It's December back on Earth. Grandfather always goes home to prepare for the solstice rituals around this time." 

"He's in Ontario?" Jet was dismayed. 

"Well, that's not far for your ship, right?" said Andrew. "He said you could give me a lift. That's why I stayed to wait for you." 

Jet stared, open-mouthed. "You're kidding me." 

"Kidding about what?" Andrew spoke around a mouthful of beans. "Grandfather said you needed to go there, too, and that you could take me. He's never wrong about such things." 

Jet scowled down at his beans. It wasn't the first time the old man had managed to manipulate him into doing something he hadn't known he didn't want to do. "I wasn't planning on going to Earth at the moment. I was just coming here for someadvice." 

"Yes, that's what Grandfather said you were coming for," agreed Andrew. "He said you wouldn't mind dropping me off on your way to see him." 

Jet closed his eyes in irritation, silently counting up the gate fees he'd need for a trip to earth. Maybe he didn't need Bull's confusing advice, after all, he thought. And then he opened his eyes and saw the boy's earnest, trusting face. Silently, he cursed the old shaman, and wondered why he was being tested. "Fine," he said shortly. "Did he leave an itinerary, and perhaps a special meal request?" 

Andrew laughed. "He just said for you to drop me off at the main entrance to the university, and I could find my way from there. That's no trouble for you, is it?" 

Jet scanned the stars and located the faraway, white-glowing body that was his birth planet. "No," he sighed. "No trouble at all." 


	6. Spider by Kat

Now I introduce the real villain of the story. Did you think it was Hitchcock? Nope ~ meet the man pulling Hitchcock's strings.

This chapter is by me (Kat).

Again, we don't own the Bebop characters. All other characters are my own invention. Although the overall story is rated PG13, this chapter is PG.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

_**Spider **_

Spike Spiegel's attack on the Red Dragons and killing of their leader tore through the organization like a bull through a spider web. But the strands of the web still hung there, quivering, waiting for the spider to weave them back together. 

Cho-Zhou, a man with no fame but with a bony finger in every pie of syndicate making, had been the syndicate treasurer for longer than most Dragons could remember. Reluctantly, pulled away from his abacus and his desk, but with cold and ruthless efficiency, he salvaged what he could from the disaster and began to rebuild what he couldn't save. He also swiftly put into effect a plan to bring up a new leader for the Dragons. One who was young, strong, and smart. And _sane_. 

Spike Spiegel. 

Sitting in his favorite room, a dimly-lit and thoroughly secure inner sanctum, he folded his hands around a delicate cup, sipping strong green tea laced with plenty of sugar, using the warmth and the flavor to clear his mind while he prepared to listen to the audio--no video, he loathed video--from the ISSP agent, Hitchcock, who was giving his report on the success of their mutual project. Even listening was unpleasant for him. He despised all the Dragons' ISSP agents. The honest ones had ideals, which made them stupid, and the corrupt ones were weaklings. But he didn't mind using them, particularly when they performed as well as Hitchcock and his men had done. Their prompt actions had saved Spike's life, at least for now. Therefore, despite his distaste, Cho felt it necessary to deal directly with Hitchcock and stay in close contact with him. 

Hitchcock's brisk voice alone was obnoxious. He had no understanding of simple courtesy, but rudely jumped into business at once. "You requested a progress report as soon as we were certain of anything, sir. Tomorrow, or at most the day after, Dr. Chan says he'll be able to bring Spiegel out of the cryoshell and begin the surgeries." 

Cho set down his cup and folded his hands over his rounded stomach with a faint smile. Even this late, he'd worried that Spike couldn't be saved. Hiding the spark of elation, he said blandly, "That is satisfactory. Does he anticipate complete success?" 

"He seems confident, even with having only one assistant." 

"You mean the other doctor, the woman? If she is as foolish as Dr. Chan described her, can she really be trusted with the surgeries?" 

"I think she's smarter than Chan gives her credit for. But he doesn't question her medical abilities, only her general intelligence. And he's right, she is naïve. I don't anticipate security trouble from her, either. However," he hesitated, "another problem _has_ come up." 

There was always another problem. But Cho would never let his weariness or irritation show to this tool. "What is it now?" 

"It's Spiegel's cowboy partner, Jet Black. He's been asking questions, poking around. And he's visited the gravesite." 

"We are aware of this." 

"You already have him under surveillance?" 

"Him, and the others from that ship. However, he was once ISSP. You know more about him, and what he is capable of, than we do. What is your opinion? Is he a danger to us?" 

Hitchcock thought a moment before saying, "He's called the Black Dog, who bites once and never lets go. That was how he was known when he was in the ISSP." 

Cho lifted the cup of tea again and took a long, contemplative sip. What to do about Spike's old associates was a delicate matter. He had been unable to discover if Spike felt any affection or loyalty toward them. If he did, then Cho had to be careful about taking action against them. After all, the carnage in the old headquarters and Vicious' messy death had all been sparked by the killing of a woman Spike had loved. Once Spike was healthy, his loyalty had to be to the Dragons and _only_ to the Dragons. Spike had cut off the Dragons when he'd become a cowboy, and now that he'd come back to the syndicate, it could be assumed that he planned to cut off his cowboy life with equal thoroughness. But what if he didn't? What if he'd changed? If so, the others would have to be taken out of the equation, but it would have to be done in such a way that Spike never suspected a manipulative hand. 

The best way, of course, would be to kill them all and blame it on an enemy. Cho sorted through his mind for the best candidate. The Monsoons would do nicely. They were the most aggressive of all the rival clans who were now gathering like jackals, hoping to pick over the bones of the Red Dragons, yet fearful to make a move until they were sure the Dragon was truly a corpse. How he looked forward to the day when the Dragon rose again! The other clans, who were nibbling warily at every Dragon business and stronghold, were even now being lulled into revealing themselves as enemies. But Cho would not strike or reveal his knowledge of their enemies until he was ready, which would be when Spike Spiegel rose from the dead to strike them down as swiftly and surely as he had struck down Vicious. Cho was doing all the planning and preparing all the traps, and he had briefed the most trusted Dragon lieutenants. As soon as Spike was ready, they could move. On that day, Cho would surrender the burden of leadership and rejoice as he helped sweep up the remains. 

"Sir?" 

A line deepened between Cho's brows. He set down the tea cup with care. "I accept your assessment. Jet Black _is_ a danger. Very well. We will handle him, however, in our own way. Tell your people to stay out of it. And say nothing to Spiegel about any of this." 

"Of course not." 

"Have Dr. Chan report to me immediately after the first surgery." 

"Yes, sir." 

Cho reached out a long finger and cut the connection. He was tired and had little remaining patience. He couldn't remember when he'd last worked so hard or for such long hours. But the syndicate was his responsibility now. More than 30 years ago, Mao Yenrai had personally chosen him to be the syndicate treasurer, raising him from the clerical ranks to a position of ultimate power and trust. He would hold the syndicate together now for Mao's memory, and he would do whatever it took to hand the reins over to Mao's chosen successor. 

He poured more tea, wanting to purge himself of the taste of Hitchcock's presence. Hitchcock believed that Cho wanted to lead the Dragons, using Spike as a puppet front, which was a measure of how little the ISSP understood the syndicates. A man was a leader, or he was not. The syndicates couldn't be fooled. Cho knew he was not a natural leader. He was too old, and his reputation as well as his nature was that of an accountant. The Dragons looked to him now and followed him for two reasons only — first, he had shown no hesitation in ordering the executions of all the Dragon members who had deserted, and second, when the time came, he would hand over the syndicate rule to Spike. Cho would have no regrets on that day. By right of battle alone, Spike had earned it, and if that were not enough, everyone knew Mao Yenrai had wanted Spike to succeed him. Spike, not Vicious. Never Vicious. 

Cho's hand tightened on the cup until the liquid trembled in it. He was spitefully glad Vicious was dead. He could never have served the man who had first sent to hell all of Mao Yenrai's plans for bringing the syndicate into a new future, and then murdered him. Had Vicious been able to offer what Mao couldn't, what Mao knew was needed, a young and vigorous leadership, Cho could have continued under him. But Vicious was insane, and his lust for power had been personal and had nothing to do with the good of the Red Dragons. Eventually Vicious would have died — if no one else had seen to it, Cho would have — but when Vicious had ordered the death of that woman, his insanity had saved them all a lot of time and trouble, and had brought forth a hero for them. Cho couldn't have managed better if he'd planned it himself. 

His hatred of Vicious, an emotion almost unknown to him before, had prompted him to send a man to the ruined headquarters with the order to be certain Vicious was truly dead and then see that the body was stripped and left where it had fallen, food for the crows. When the building was repaired, Cho planned to seal what remained into the walls and imprison the man's spirit there for as long as steel and concrete would last. 

He smiled faintly at the thought. Spike would appreciate the finality of Vicious' entombment, and Cho wanted to do everything possible to please Spike, to convince him that his destiny was to lead the Dragons. 

But until he knew for certain that Spike had embraced that destiny, he would be cautious. Mao Yenrai had loved Spike, and Cho did not want to have to kill him. 


	7. New Toronto by Tian Ning

Back to Jet again. He's returning to his roots, and is about to get a nice birthday surprise.

This chapter is written by Tian Ning.

Jet Black and all Bebop characters do not belong to us, but all original characters belong to Tian Ning.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

**_New Toronto_**

_Time doesn't stand still_. Jet squinted through the glare of the Hammerhead's dirty windshield at the settlement emerging from the fog below. At first light, they had left the Bebop in a sheltered berth in old Toronto's dilapidated harbor, paid the fee, and fled as quickly as possible from the depressing sight of the ruined city. Twenty minutes later, they were circling the land about a hundred kilometers west. And as he scanned Toronto's successor nestled on the uneven terrain below the Niagara escarpment, Alisa's words came back to him. 

It seemed much longer than sixteen years since he had last seen the New Toronto skyline, if that was what you could call the view he remembered. Back then there was little to see but a great swath of stark, weed-covered humps marking the underground dwellings. Huddled against the cliffs, those shelters had been dug hastily and later shored up by refugees of the apocalyptic destruction of old Toronto and its suburbs. Though it offered more protection from the unpredictable barrage of space debris than the flat glacier plane, the region had suffered its own catastrophic losses. The forests and old orchards, once the economic mainstay of the locals, had withered and died in the unending winter the gate accident had made. More than a decade and a half ago, when Jet had taken his last look back through the window of the transport bound for Mars, he'd seen nothing but jagged tusks of rotting deadwood thrusting up at him. Now, as they made their final approach, he could see even through the fog that the New Toronto below them was not the one he remembered. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

"Go left," Andrew yelled over the engines from behind Jet's seat as they taxied. "The Computer Center parking lot's right over there. You can use my dad's faculty spot. He won't get in for a couple hours yet." 

The corner of Jet's mouth turned upward. "He finally got tenure, huh?" 

Andrew snorted. "Nine years ago!" 

Jet gave Andrew a slow take over his shoulder. "Nine" he murmured, then straightened and looked ahead. "No way." 

He rolled along well-groomed runways to a concrete structure jutting from the sod like some ancient, half-buried plow. Andrew guided him to the space labeled "T. RedCrow." The last whine of the Hammerhead's engines stilled, and he greeted the quiet with some relief. 

As he popped open the cockpit, an icy blast sucked in and cut through his threadbare denims and old plaid flannel shirt. "Man!" Jet stood up, crossed his arms and tucked his chin against the cold. "You going to be warm enough, Andrew?" 

"I'm not cold," he said, crawling out of the cramped space behind the pilot's seat. "I'm used to it." He handed Jet the worn leather coat and Russian fur hat he'd been holding on his folded knees. "But here's your stuff." He scrambled out onto the wing step and dropped to the gravel. "The ATM's on the way to the library," he said, dusting his hands on his thighs, "I'll show you where. Come on. The library opens in about ten minutes. I have a lot of work to do before my sister gets here." 

Jet released the long breath he'd been holding and stared down at the boy with mild amusement. "At least you haven't changed." 

Andrew rolled his eyes slightly. "Come on." 

Jet walked silently alongside the boy, who seemed as comfortable with the surroundings as he himself felt disoriented. The air was at once strange and familiar; not the cold, lifeless air of space, this was alive with the scents of pine and soil. The cold taste of it stole his breath and made him a bit light-headed with nostalgia. Funny how smells could do that when everything looked so different. Where scant, scruffy grass and seedlings had once struggled towards the dim sunlight, now there were maples and aspens lining the walks and reaching far over his head. The spruce and pines bristling over vague outlines of the old underground campus buildings were even bigger. 

"I barely even recognize the place," Jet said quietly to himself, then addressed Andrew, strolling at his elbow. "When I was here, no one believed the trees would ever grow." 

The boy shrugged. "The meteors are falling closer to the equator now," he said. "Mostly hitting open ocean. So the dust is finally starting to settle, especially above 45 degrees north and south. That means a little less rain and snow, but more sun. And there's still plenty of water up this way, which is good for the new plantings." He waved his arm to the northwest. "If you think this is something, you should see how the woods in the hills have grown." 

Jet halted. "The hills? You mean to tell me the trees are growing back on their own?" He took two long strides to catch up with Andrew, who hadn't missed a step. 

"Never took ecology, eh?" said Andrew. "Once the dust settled and the sun came back, the plants came out of nowhere. Professor Hennig in Environmental Engineering got a big grant for a thirty-year reforestation project. Past fifteen years he's headed a big team of biology and environmental engineering faculty and grad students whose main job is figuring out how to keep the trees healthy and growing as fast as they can. Right around when I was born, they inoculated a bunch of plots in the hills with mycorrhizae so they'd" he glanced up at Jet and rephrased, "uhused a special fungus that help them grow. The trees really shot up after that. They've been setting seed, and we've got pioneer understory plants growing up all over the hills. The native stuff is starting to come back." 

Jet stared up at the canopy flickering overhead and grinned. "You're scary, Andrew." 

"What, because I care about our investment?" He shrugged again. "You ought to be glad." 

Jet shook his head and looked back at the ground as they trudged along_. If I'd had as much faith in this place as you have_, he thought, _I might never have left. But maybe you're right, Andrew. You've always been a hundred-year-old man in a boy's body. Maybe you see something the rest of us don't. _

Andrew stopped and pointed. "It's right down that walk. I'll wait for you." 

It took Jet a few minutes to remember the codes. _Account balance_. From the ATM's shelter, he glanced out at Andrew, who was idly kicking a sycamore capsule around with his toe. Even though it was Andrew, he was still surprised that a boy so young would be sensitive enough to keep a discreet distance while his chauffeur tapped into an ancient bank account that probably carried a negative balance. He sighed, glad he'd at least been able to give the boy a decent breakfast back at the Bebop. The machine whirred and spat out a slip of paper. Almost afraid to look, Jet squinted at it with one eye closed. He stared for a moment, then opened both eyes. 

_Would you like to make another transaction?_ the screen asked. Damn straight, he thought grimly. This is no time for stupid jokes. _Account balance_, he punched again. The slip came more quickly this time, and the amount was the same. 

"Okay, joke's over," Jet growled. "Let's see you keep it up when I ask you to deliver the goods." He flipped his cash card out of his wallet and jammed it into the slot. _Withdrawal. 50,000 Woolongs._ He punched the keys a little too hard, and sent a challenging smirk up at the dark eye of the closed circuit security recorder. The machine whirred busily for a while, and he gave a satisfied grunt, thinking he'd forced it to admit its error. At last the machine gave two electronic chirps, and spat the card back out at him. Jet snatched it, pressed his fingertip to its fingerprint authorization pad, and stared in shock as the new total on his card winked up at him. He stood unmoving, half-wondering if the card might suddenly burst into flames. "What_hell_?" 

The machine was sliding him another receipt. He ripped it out of the slot and glared at it. The quantity printed on it was exactly fifty-thousand Woolongs less than before, but the withdrawal had barely nicked the total. Slowly, he slid the cash card into his wallet, and turned to look at Andrew. The boy was still kicking the brown seed pod around the sidewalk, but glanced up to see Jet's eyes on him. 

"Orchards have been doing pretty well, eh?" he said. 

Jet's jaw dropped momentarily, but he quickly snapped his mouth shut. "Seems that way." 

The two walked on in silence. It was only when Andrew turned down the walk leading to the underground library that Jet spoke. "Andrew." 

"Sir?" 

He stared down at the boy, not exactly sure of what he wanted to ask. "What's going on?" The question sounded lame, even to him. "I haven't heard anything about the orchards doing well until this minute. When I left, the trees were nothing but dying stumps. What the hell is going on?" 

Andrew shrugged. "Just because you didn't think they'd grow didn't mean you were right. My grandfather promised yours that his family wouldn't give up on the trees. And my dad still thinks you were nuts to offer us seventy percent of the profits, just for taking care of the land when you went offworld to be a cop. You know as well as anyone what real, Earth-grown fruit sells for out there. If you think your account is impressive, you should see the RedCrows'." 

Jet blinked, but found nothing to say. 

"You might want to go up there, Running Rock." Andrew's voice was suddenly as calm as his grandfather's. "It's changed."

"Maybe I will." 

"Well, then we both have something to keep us busy. See you around, eh?" 

Andrew scuffed down the walk, heaved open the heavy oak and copper doors, and disappeared into the dark. Jet stood unmoving, gazing at the old, familiar entry. He took a few tentative steps closer to the door, and raised his face to the bronze coat-of-arms overhead. Engraved on it was the university's motto, _Velut arborum aevo. Tantum Nobis Creditum_. May the trees thrive. So much has been entrusted to us. 

Below the coat of arms was emblazoned the year the university had been established, 2028, and a list of fifteen names. He had heard the story so many times as a boy. How only seven years after the gate accident, those fifteen men and women had refused to accept that the technological arrogance of one corporation would consign all of humanity to a primitive state of mere survival. 

Through the tenuous threads of the Internet they had solicited engineers, architects, and builders from around the broken world to come to this place and help build their vision of the future. They had taken the ideals and motto of the old, destroyed University of Toronto at Missisauga and in this new place had resurrected it, the world's first university established after the gate accident. Even those who had expressed grudging admiration for the idea had never believed it could succeed. But here it stood, forty-four years later, and from all appearances, thriving as well as the trees. Sixteen years ago, he'd left this place, practically dusting his hands with relief and never wanting to return. But suddenly, for a scant moment, he felt a small surge of pride that he had once been part of this. 

He stared blankly at the names, and though he tried not to read them, the second name blazed out at him. _Cyril Black_. A wave of melancholy washed through him. He looked up at the maple branches, where a few frosted, red leaves still clung. "Hey, Granddad," he said quietly. "I don't know if you're there. But if you are, I'm also not sure I ever thanked you enough." 

He dug in his pocket for the last receipt, uncrumpled it, and studied each number. The account was right. The dateDecember 3. He blinked again, and a rueful smile spread slowly across his face. "Son of a gun," he whispered. He stuffed the paper back into his pocket, and lifted his head. "Not a bad birthday present." 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Banking over the hills, Jet felt vaguely drunk with an odd mixture of homesickness and disbelief at the changes below. It had taken three or four passes before he'd been able to locate the ravine where, decades ago, his grandfather had used some of the ample forest deadwood to build his log cabin bunker right into the cliffs. Jet had grown up there, had known every rock and runoff, but he had not been able to recognize it under the waving mass of young evergreens. 

He decided against landing near any of the habitations spreading outward from the town. It wasn't likely that anyone would be on the lookout for him or his craft here, but better not to take chances. He cast about for a clearing near the foothills. After what Andrew had told him, he was loathe to set down anywhere he might disturb the new saplings. 

The closest clearing big enough to land the Hammerhead was about ten kilometers west of the college town and just south of the hills. As he approached, he glanced down and saw among the trees a familiar settlement spreading northward from the campus. Once the university had started doing well, enterprising merchants had come to settle, figuring if anyone had money to spend in these hard times, it would be kids whose parents could afford to send them to the University of New Toronto. Back in his own college days, the line of taverns and stores below had been the only place anyone had dared to build above ground. Because dead trees were plentiful after the gate accident, and as much as a tourist attraction as anything else, most of the places had been built to resemble rugged log cabins of the late 1800's. But each was little more than an entryway built over an underground bunker that housed the main space of each business. No one was foolish enough to take unreasonable chances with a financial venture so risky to begin with. But as Jet peered down at the cabins, he quickly counted at least three times as many as he remembered. Maybe it hadn't been as big a risk as some had feared. 

Even at this early hour, blue plumes trailed from the chimneys. He could almost smell the burning wood and taste the grill smoke as the memories of dusk outings to those taverns came rushing back. With those bittersweet memories came a renewed sense of his most recent losses. It seemed as if his whole life had been nothing but a series of painful partings. The first of them had been here, in New Toronto. Almost against his will, his eyes roved the horizon. He could not see the rise that marked the hospital from his position, but the blinking tower beacon that marked its position was hard to miss. He forced his eyes and mind away, unwilling to sully the experience of visiting the woods, and banked the Hammerhead towards the clearing. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

If he had been lost from the air, he found it even harder to get his bearings walking through the woods. If not for a few familiar ravines and rocky outcroppings, he might never have steered himself in the right direction. But he finally found the dirt road that led to the old bunker. He wasn't surprised to find the path well maintained, since the orchards obviously were being tended. But it still felt strange--in a good way--to see it lined with thick stands of firs, pines and dormant hardwoods. 

Though his wounded leg kept him from hiking at full speed, he soon shed his heavy coat and hat and draped them over his shoulder. Sunlight flashed through the canopy. The scent of pines filled his head. His mind was blissfully empty. The only animals he saw were a few magpies noisily arguing over some morsel one had found. The rest was silence, the wind across his ears, and the quiet crunch of dead leaves under his boots. 

At last, he turned off the road and up the path to his old home. He tried to steel himself for whatever emotions might assail him. But when he finally laid eyes on the place, he found he still wasn't quite prepared. 

He stopped short at the sight of the heavy wooden door built into the cliffside, then strode to within twenty yards of it. He dropped his coat and hat into the dust, and stood, hands spread at his sides, as if the door were some sort of altar. The breeze died, and all became so still that the tinnitus in his own ears became a roar. He felt disembodied, his legs and feet floating, his head loose on his shoulders. 

The oldest of the fruit trees, the ones his grandfather had first used to graft new seedlings and create his orchard, still bordered the clearing in front of the bunker. He walked close, spread his right hand against the chilly bark of oldest pear tree, and fingered the lichens crusted there. The branches were bare, as were those of the six cherry trees. The four gnarled apple trees, though nearly leafless, still bore a few frostbitten, wrinkled-looking fruit. Considering the price of real fruit, he wondered why even those hadn't been harvested, even if only by trespassers. 

Almost reluctantly, he turned his eyes to the door. He wondered whether he should try to jimmy the lock, or just turn away now. Then he ambled to the front step. 

When he tentatively pressed his thumb to the heavy, brass latch, he was momentarily shocked to feel it click and give way. He drew his hand away from the door as it swung ajar, and rapped it with his knuckles. 

"Yo!" he cocked his head and called into the darkness. "Anyone home?" 

He waited, then pushed the door open. It swung wide without so much as a creak. "Hello" the word died in his throat as the mid-morning sun filtered past him and lit a sight that hurled him back far more than sixteen years. 

It seemed unchanged. The walls, shored up with huge fir beams and lined with meticulously joined split logs, looked freshly oiled and polished. The woolen rugs laid over the flagstone were as colorful as on those winter nights when he had spread himself there and listened to the stories the fireplace hummed. He stood on the raised wooden landing and surveyed the dim shapes in the living room a few steps below him. He swung the door so only a few inches let in the sunlight, and descended into the room. Slowly, he turned to face the old stone fireplace to the right of the entryway, and then went to stand before it. A long moment passed before he let out a long, silent sigh. He dropped to one knee before the hearth, wincing as he flexed his wounded thigh. He stared for a while before slowly reaching out to touch the edges of the stones with his right hand. Even in the dim light, he recognized each of them, their shapes, their dun, red and grey veins. The individual personalities his child self had unconsciously assigned each stone peered hauntingly out at him. And for just for this moment, the Jet Black who had lived here so long ago woke up, let the familiar touches and smells wash through his head and bring him back home. 

A long-nosed butane lighter was propped against the stones. It was full, and lit on the first strike. He doubted the generator was primed, but he didn't want to start it and ruin the silence, anyway. The lighter would do. 

Its faint halo wavered ahead of him as he meandered back through the hall and into the kitchen. The long, mirrored tunnel of one of granddad's skylights brought in enough daylight for him to see, once his eyes adjusted. He found a nearly-spent candle there, lit it, and waited as the flame grew. Smooth, stone countertops shone dully in the faint light. He ran a hand along them, and feathered his fingers against the perfectly sanded maple cabinets Granddad had made. He opened one, found tins of flour, coffee and tea. He opened the coffee tin, stuck his nose in and breathed deeply. It was fresh, and the smell that flushed up through his sinuses drew him even deeper into the past. How long he had been standing there when the candle sputtered and brought him back to his senses, he did not know. But he picked it up and carried it back through the hallway. 

He passed by the hall closet door and, almost as an afterthought, paused and plucked it open. A couple of dark, faux leather cases were propped there. One was Granddad's old guitar case. The other, dimly lit by the candle's flame, was his own. He breathed another silent sigh through his half-open mouth, and shook his head. Slowly, he pulled the case out, sat on the floor, lay it across his knees, and stared long before opening it. He was already so enveloped by the past that even the musty, metallic smell could not deepen his nostalgia. He lifted his old tenor sax from its dark blue velvet nest, riffled the fingerpads, tongued a tentative blast through the mouthpiece, then set it down and picked up the rusted Sucrets tin that held his reeds. He pushed them around with a finger until he found his best, slipped it onto his tongue, and snapped the tin shut. 

Something else caught his eye, a dusty shine in the corner of the closet. An old, gold-foil cardboard box. He knew what it held. Gently, he set the sax and its case to the side, and reached into the closet again. The box slid easily from under a small stack of scrapbooks. He needed more light. Still sucking the reed and staring at the lid of the box, he scooped up the candle and continued down the dark hallway to the stairs. 

Half a flight up, he peered through a small, portal carved through the sandstone. It overlooked the kitchen, and from this vantage, he could see the table and chairs on the other side of the kitchen pass-through window. On that seventh step, a living force seemed to push him down on one knee. Almost without realizing it, he had spun around and sat down on the step in that same position he had so often taken when eavesdropping on the adults sitting at the kitchen table. The smell of granddad's pipe, the faint whiff of the single malt, the rustling of papers as the old man worked there--he smelled and heard them again. And then, without warning, voices came back to him, as real as the day they had spoken nearly three decades ago. All at once, he was nine years old again, perched on that step, his cheek pressed against the cold, stone wall. They were talking about him. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

"You understand, don't you?" It was his father's voice, almost plaintive. "I've been dragging him around the solar system for three years now. He's learned faster than most adults would about piloting and repairing the ship. But a transport pilot's life isn't good for a growing boy." 

"I don't know." It was granddad's thick, Scots brogue, quiet and masterful. "I agree that he needs more schooling than what he can get out in space with you. But this is a working farm. A boy his age will be in the way, and may be at risk out here." 

"Not Jet," countered his father. "If I can tell you one thing about him it's that you won't have any trouble getting him to shoulder his share of the chores. He's good with machines, even at his age. He'll be working alongside your best field hands in no time." 

"He'd do better to stay out of their way." 

"Not likely." His father's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "He tries so hard to please. It's almostunnatural. He's underfoot all the time, trying to do everything himself. Always trying to take care of everything." 

"_Ach_," it was his grandmother's voice, deep and sad. "_Er ist genau wie dieEva_." 

"Yes, I know he's got that from his mother. And I hear what you're saying, Gabriel Taggart" said Cyril. "But it's a great deal you're asking. I'm sixty-two years old now, and Halina is nearly sixty. I'm still department chair at the U, and Halina has her hands full trying to run the orchards while I'm working there." 

"The orchards!" Gabriel almost snorted. "They're not coming back, Cyril." 

The quiet clink of glass on glass and the gurgle of poured whiskey softly punctuated the conversation. 

"That sounds like a challenge, Boy." Cyril's voice was suddenly cold. "For a man who can't even stay in one place long enough to marry the mother of his own son, I'd say you talk a bit too much about things that last a long time past one man's life. About things you'll never understand." 

"Cyril" his grandmother's voice was soothing, and Jet could almost see her put a hand on her husband's arm. "Flying space barge _ist_ not home for so little boy. _Ich wille ihm¨ubernehmen. Ach bitte, mein Hertz." _

There was a long, aching silence. Jet envisioned his father and grandfather sitting across the table from each other, arms crossed against their chests, glaring at one another. 

"Cyril," pleaded his grandmother quietly. 

"For you, Halina," Cyril relented. "I'll do it for you. Not for this irresponsible rogue." 

Gabriel let out an audible sigh, and his voice became uncharacteristically meek. "You're doing the right thing by the boy, Cyril," he said. "You know as well as I do that living in space isn't healthy for him. He's too smart. His life will be wasted if he stays with me at his age." 

"I'll expect you to still be his financial support, Gabe," said Cyril. "You're not to abandon your own son." 

"I love the boy," Gabe's voice almost seemed to quaver. "Of course I'd never abandon him. This is as hard for me as" 

"as it was for you to be off gallivanting on Mars while his mother was here, dying." 

"That's not fair." Gabriel's voice was brittle. "No one expected her to go so quickly. I was on my way back when" 

"We've been over this before," Cyril interrupted. "Enough times, I think." 

"I took the boy and raised him after Eva died," Gabriel pressed, unwilling to let the comment pass. "I love my son. I've taken care of him alone for three years. He's a fine boy, and won't disappoint you." 

"Don't push your luck," said Cyril. "I've agreed to take him on, for Halina's sake. But now you'll have a hard thing to do tomorrow." 

A moment of silence. Then Gabriel spoke again, very quietly. "I'll tell him." 

"That you will," agreed Cyril. "First thing. The sooner he gets used to the idea, the better." 

"Do you think he'll be upset?" His father seemed to be directing the question to the gentle Halina. "It's justI can't manage. It's too much. Taking care of him and holding down my job. He'sin the way." 

Adult Jet felt the icy spear race through him as if it were all happening again. He tightly shut his eyes. A long silence passed before his grandfather spoke. 

"Little Cyril will have a fine place to" 

"Jet," interrupted his father, his voice now as bold as ever. "He's called Jet now. He likes that better than Cyril. You know that." 

"Right. Jet, then," his grandfather growled at that small slap at his own name. "But I don't want you to think we're doing this for you. We're doing it for the boy. For Eva's memory. He's our flesh and blood. And he's better off here with us than learning his values from the likes of you." 

"He could have done worse than being with me," Gabriel said mildly. Now that he had won his goal, he had lost interest in arguing. 

"And despite what you think," Cyril didn't acknowledge Gabriel's self defense, "The land is starting to come back. It'll be a good place for a boy to grow up." 

"I hope so." 

Again, silence. The soft clink of ice cubes whirling repetitively against glass. 

"You'll tell him in the morning, then." said Cyril Black. It wasn't a question. 

"Yes. I'll tell him," his father's voice echoed in Jet's head. "I'll tell him" 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

But Gabriel Taggart hadn't spoken to his son the next morning. At sunrise, his bed had been empty, and he was gone. Jet's pressed his closed eyes into a scowl. It didn't matter. He didn't care any more that he'd never seen his father again. It no longer mattered to him that his father hadn't had the courage--after three years as a father-son piloting team--to say a last goodbye. 

He worked the saxophone reed against his tongue for a moment, then abruptly stood and mounted the stairs, following the pale sunbeam the upstairs skylights drew in. He looked down on the expansive living room below the landing, his hand gliding almost reverently along the protective railing. Through the open bedroom doors to his right, he could see that the beds were made, and all was as tidy as when his grandmother had been in charge. The furniture had been moved around a bit, but the familiarity of the rooms hadn't changed. 

The last one had been his room. He wandered in, staring up at the skylight, then scanning all four corners. He folded his knees and dropped to his haunches on the edge of the bed, holding the gold box gingerly. The Pale rays from above caught the dust particles he had raised, and made them wink at the edge of his vision. When he finally lifted the lid, it seemed right that the first face that gazed up at him was his mother's. 

It was the graduation portrait taken when she'd received her nursing degree. Light brown waves curled out from under her mortar board and framed the smooth lines of her face. The brilliant blue eyes were discomfittingly like the ones he met in the mirror each morning, except that hers smiled. His mother's smile had always been real, always filling her eyes. He marveled at that for a moment. Why was it that none of the women he met smiled that way? Their lips would turn upward, but their eyes always remained distant, even cold. A smile like his mother's seemed so rare in a woman. Just the memory of that smile made it easy for him to understand how even a seasoned transport pilot like his father, who had never let himself get tied down before, had finally let his heart be captured by this woman, even if he'd never gotten around to actually marrying her. 

Jet almost had to force himself to flip past that first photograph. There was his old fraternity picture, with himself, a head taller than all the others, standing in the back row next to Tom RedCrow. He laughed softly. _Did I really have that much hair? _he thought_. Check out the soul patch!_ His smile widened. "What a geek!" 

One after another, the photos softly gleamed up at him. He found his team portrait in which he posed, leaning forward on one knee, one broad, long-fingered hand splayed across the football on his thigh. "God, how corny." He grinned. Then a snapshot his granddad had taken during a Concert Jazz Band performance. There he was in the middle row, bent forward over his sax, hat pulled low over his eyes. He shook his head in amazement and laughed again._ Maybe time does stand still_. 

Deeper in the box, the photos were older. There was Gabriel Taggart, a wild grin spread across his angular face. It looked as if he'd glanced up from the newborn son nestled in the crook of his arm just long enough for the photo to be snapped. The huge, long-fingered hand of his other arm was wrapped around Eva's shoulder, and she smiled up at him adoringly. There was that smile again. 

The next one froze under his hand. A boy, not more than six years old, was standing beside that beautiful woman who had been his mother. But her face wasn't the one in the graduation photo. The eyes were still that haunting, pale blue, but they were sunken in a thin, pinched face half hidden by the few lank strands of hair left on her head. She had tried valiantly to brush them into place for the photo, but they could not hide her sickness. The boy's hand was on the arm of his mother's wheelchair, and he stared, unsmiling, at the camera. 

Jet's head tilted back, almost of its own accord, and he found himself staring up, mouth agape, into the distant skylight. He dropped the pile of photographs to cover that last one. But it was too late to stop the memory. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

He felt his grandmother's hands between his shoulder blades, pressing him forward. "_Nah, _ Cyril," she was saying. "_Geh doch schon hinein, mein Schatz. Deine Mama will mit Dir sprechen. Hab' keine Angst._" 

It was hard to focus. Could that thin, wasted form under the sheets be his mother? A great, looping mass of tubes and wires seemed to sprout from her. But as he came closer, her eyes opened, and the face softened into the one he knew and loved so well. She seemed tired, and somehow not completely in control of herself. 

"Cyril," she whispered. Her voice was slurred. 

"Jet," he heard himself say. "Dad says to call me Jet. I like that better." 

"Okay, Jet." The ashen face folded into a smile. "I like it, too." Eva's sunken eyes flickered up above his head, signaling to his grandmother. He felt two soft pats on his shoulder, then felt the older woman's warm, substantial presence pull away and leave him alone with his mother, her daughter. 

"When are you coming home?" he heard himself ask petulantly. "It's boring staying with granddad and grandma." 

"Soon," she said. "I'll come home soon." She closed her eyes. "Jet?" 

"What." 

"Will you do something for me?" 

He shifted on his feet, wondering what this might be about. "I guess." 

"Take care of your father," she said softly. She said nothing for such a long time that Jet wondered if she had fallen asleep. Then suddenly, "I couldn't take care of him as much as he needed me to. Maybe that's why he left us alone so much." 

"When you come home, we'll both take care of him, okay Mom?" 

"Like always." 

What she had said suddenly sank in. "Did Dad leave because we weren't taking care of him?" It seemed impossible. His mother was always looking after everyone but herself. 

"No" the word was little more than a sigh. "Well. Not really. His job takes him away. But when he's here, if we take really good care of him, then maybe he won't go away any more." 

Jet frowned. "He'll stay with us? He'll come live with us for good? If we take care of him?" 

She rolled her head and faced the ceiling. "I didn't look after you and your father enough," she said feebly, as if to someone else. 

Jet chewed on this for a while, not sure he understood. "But I won't ever go away, Mom." 

"I know you won't, Jet," she said. "You've always been so good." She turned her eyes to him again, and reached out a hand to touch his hair. There was almost no substance to her fingers. Her eyes shone like wet glass. "You can do this. You can take care of him." She almost seemed to be arguing with herself. "You're just a baby. But you're such a smart boy. You can learn from what I did wrong. If you take good care of him, Gabe will stay with you." 

Jet began to feel a little frantic. "I don't get it." But maybe he did get it. Was she was saying that if someone left you alone, it was because you hadn't taken good enough care of them? He guessed it wasn't the first time she'd said that to him. Was she telling him, in her quiet way, that he hadn't done his job? But she had just said she wouldn't leave him. She wouldn't leave him. He'd always been good, and worked hard. She wouldn't leave him. Right? 

Eva settled back, her color not much different from the sheets'. "I love you, Jet." 

Jet cocked his head, puzzled and alarmed. "Me too, Mom." 

She took an odd breath and her eyes shot open. All at once, an alarm sounded. Above the bed, a small, red light began flashing. Almost instantly, the room was swarming with huge bodies, pushing him aside, moving frantically, urgently saying things he didn't understand. His grandmother's hands were on his shoulders, her arms around his waist, lifting him up and swinging him around so he couldn't see. Her body was heaving against his, making strange, harsh sounds. She was crushing him against her, her face hot and wet against his, uttering uncontrollable, animal-like sobs that were almost screams. He pushed away, terrified, and found himself set free as his grandmother collapsed against the wall. 

He still was not sure what was happening, but the only thing he could think to do was run back to the door of his mother's hospital room. He couldn't see her, surrounded by big people in white, moving frantically, shouting things to one another over the scream of electronic noises. In that moment, he suddenly knew what it was like to be completely, utterly alone. And somehow--the idea seared into him--it was his fault. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Jet expelled a great, harsh breath, trying to still the queasy, sick feeling the memory gave him. "Stupid kid," he snorted, the saxophone reed still sticking out of the edge of his taut mouth. "Of course it wasn't your fault. Idiot." But as much as his rational, adult mind knew it, some small, poisoned part of him could not accept it. He shut the box, cast it onto the bed, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to wearily rub his face. 

On his way down the stairs, he nearly tripped on the saxophone in the dim light. He uttered a mild curse, and bent to pick it up. He clamped the wet reed into place, and rested the mouthpiece against his teeth. The first riff--it seemed to bypass his brain and come directly from his fingers--was the first few bars of _Something I Dreamed Last Night_. The notes were breathy, and ended in a painful squawk. 

"No chops," he muttered, slid the reed guard in place, and set the saxophone gently back into its case. Part of him was wishing desperately that he had not come here, while another part wanted to claw his nails into the walls and never leave. What had made him think he could visit this place without awakening those unbearable memories? 

He blew out the candle as soon as the light from the front door, still barely ajar, was close enough that he could make his way back through the living room. He paused, just for a moment, to gaze at the log walls, begging something there--anything--to soothe his reawakened pain. He hadn't even looked towards the southern end of the long living room into the darkened corner away from the fireplace. But he looked now. And there it was, unchanged. 

On a raised platform stood five, straight-backed pine chairs. The seat of each was draped with a square of red-checked, gingham cotton. Two brass and walnut music stands stood erect against the wall where a big, knotted wool sculpture--he could make out the familiar oranges and browns even in the dim light--was hung to baffle the sound of the music the old men had made there every Thursday night. Even the sawed-off log, the one old Murphy had used to prop his foot when he fiddled, squatted there in the midst of the chairs. 

"Holy crap" Jet breathed. He felt the dark grip release his stomach even as the small hairs prickled along the back of his neck. "I don't believe it." He moved towards the corner, and almost laughed when yet another memory stirred up: a tune coming alive and growing louder in his ears. The sight of them came next. There was Murphy, sawing away on his fiddle, and next to him, skinny old Ned, his chin pointed straight out as he stood erect beside his stand up bass. Alex Dunn leaned languidly against his chair, motionless except for the spidery hands on his banjo and an occasional swivel of his long neck as he watched his fellow musicians. Frank Budge flat-fingered his tinwhistle, his back so straight against his chair that his buttocks stuck out the back of it. And there was his own grandfather, Cyril Black, swaying in time and deftly picking the tune on his guitar. He could hear the song, a fast slip-jig, as real and cheery as when they'd played on those firelit nights. His grandmother sat by the fireplace sewing and tapping her foot while he himself sat cross-legged in front of the platform, mesmerized by the tight, merry sound of the band. Granddad gave a small "whup!" to signal his mates that it was the last bar, and then those bright, blue eyes turned to him and he heard his grandfather's voice. "What'll it be then, Jet? What'll we play next?" 

"Play my favorite one!" he would always say. And without a word, the five old men would glance at each other, grin, nod and seamlessly sail into the sad, lilting ballad whose name he did not know, but whose every note he could play in his head. He stared into the darkness as the music wrapped around him. When the last note faded away, he blinked and swallowed hard, drawing back the hot wetness that swelled in his eyes. 

"Why do the good things have to die?" he snapped in a whisper. "It's always the good things." His shoulders sagged a bit as he turned away from that corner and walked towards the dust-speckled sunbeam streaming in through the doorway. 

His gaze stayed low, tracing the ground as he stepped out into the light and turned around to close the door. Nor did he raise his eyes when a terrible, familiar sound greeted him as the door clicked shut. He froze, his hand still on the latch, and grimaced slightly. It hadn't been just one rifle cocking, but many. How could he have been so careless? 

An odd noise followed. The wet stutter of a horse's snort. He dropped his fingers from the latch and raised both hands. Slowly, he turned and lifted his eyes to meet those of eight stern-faced men on horseback, their rifle barrels trained squarely on his head. 


	8. The Dragon Wakes by Kat

Spike wakes up at last and meets Gwen, but he's not happy about his situation.

This chapter is by me (Kat).

Again, we don't own the Bebop characters. All other characters are my own invention. This chapter is PG13 for a little bad language.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

_**The Dragon Wakes**_

_Well, whaddya know? I think I'm still alive._ Not only alive, but with the mother of all hangovers.

Spike didn't open his eyes, partly because he could see light through his lids, and light was definitely not something he was interested in at the moment. Not with this headache. Partly, however, he kept them shut because he wasn't sure where he was. Not on the Bebop, that was certain. The Bebop had never smelled so clean. Sanitized.

_You're in a hospital, you idiot. That's the only place you could be if you're still alive._ But whoever heard of a hospital where there was singing?

A woman was singing, and definitely not Faye. This woman was on key. The voice wasn't great, but it was pretty. Like waking up to bird song in the morning, something he hadn't done for a long time. Then he heard the lyrics, and the comparison to bird song fled. She was singing a bawdy little bar ditty called _Why Did You Do That?_ He almost smiled. He would have, except he would rather know a little more about where he was and how he'd gotten there before he admitted to being awake.

He wasn't sure why he was alive in the first place. He wasn't supposed to be. Vicious had always said that only he could kill him, and Spike had believed he'd done it. Apparently not. For a bad moment, he wondered if Vicious were alive, too, somewhere in this hospital or whatever it was, but he dismissed the thought. He'd shot enough people to know death when he saw it. Vicious was dead, but, somehow, he himself had survived.

He slitted his eyes. Perhaps because he was expecting it, he noticed the difference right away. If nothing else, Vicious' death had brought him out of the dream. Both his eyes were seeing the same thing. Having a woman nearby, singing, did remind him of Julia, but it was a memory, not a vision.

However, it was a memory far too raw and painful to linger over. Instead, he looked around as best he could through his lashes. The room was too big for a hospital room, and except for what was immediately around him, it was equipped more like a lab. _That's not good._

After a moment he found the singing woman. She was sitting at a long table, filling out paperwork with temperamental little slashes of her stylus, emphasizing her irritation by growling the lyrics of the song. She was really more a girl than a woman, small and compact, with a mass of unruly blonde curls, badly cut and inefficiently pulled back with two clips. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, sitting on a stool with her feet swinging inches from the floor, back and forth like some little kid. He thought she was cute.

No one else was in the room with them. He supposed it was time to wake up officially. He said the first thing that came into his mind. "Hey. You have a cigarette?"

His voice was weak, barely more than a whisper, but he got her attention. She shrieked and jumped. Then she bounced up and trotted over to peer at him. He winked at her.

She grinned. "I'll skip the obvious exclamations, like, oh-you're-awake," she said, reaching down to lay fingers on his wrist.

Following her movement with his eyes, he realized that he was strapped down to the bed. "What's this for?" he demanded. He was going to tug at the restraints, but his arms wouldn't respond. That worried him.

"You were thrashing around in your sleep. Not a good thing to do for a man in your condition."

Thrashing around. Then he wasn't paralyzed. "And just what is my condition?"

"Lets say you couldn't arm wrestle a two-year-old," she said, bending to loosen the straps on his arms.

He tried to move one arm. She was right. A two-year-old could have creamed him. "Think you could be a bit more specific?"

"Later, maybe. How do you feel?"

"Like shit."

"Think you could be a bit more specific?"

"I will if you will."

She laughed. "You first."

"My head feels like it's imploded, and I can't move. Much. Other than that, I'm just fine. Nothing hurts except my head, but that hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. Where am I, anyway? This isn't a hospital."

"It is right now. It's a private facility set up by the ISSP."

"Yeah? The ISSP? Why would they do that for me?"

She gave him an odd look, then said, "Disorientation _is_ a common symptom."

"Symptom of _what?_ And I'm not disoriented."

"Symptom of short-term cryosleep. What's your last memory?"

"Falling down on the stairs."

She sighed. "Oh, dear. I'm too ignorant to help here. Do you remember your name?"

"Yes."

She waited. So did he. At last they both grinned and she said, "OK, you win. I'll ask it. What is your name?"

"Spike Spiegel. What's yours?"

She gaped at him. _"Spike Spiegel?"_

What had he done to get that reaction?

Then she did something even more strange. She scowled at him and said, "Quit joking."

"I'm not. That's my name. You don't like it?"

"You can't be Spike Spiegel."

"Somebody took over my identity while I was out?"

"No. Spike Spiegel's dead."

He blinked. "I don't feel _that_ bad."

"Are you really Spiegel? You're not just pulling my leg?"

He smiled. "How can I pull your leg when I can't even move? If you don't believe me, you don't. But that's who I am."

She jumped up and started pacing around the room, muttering about him falling on the stairs. "What the heck is going on?" she suddenly said aloud.

"I was going to ask you the same question."

"Oh man oh man. I've got to think. I've got this all wrong."

She wasn't talking to him, but to herself. Before she wandered further off, either mentally or physically, he reminded her, "Hey, you owe me an explanation, remember?"

"I do? Of what?"

"Of why I can't move, for one thing."

"Oh, that."

"Yeah. _That_."

She paused to collect her thoughts. He could almost see her shifting into "medical" mode. When she was composed, she said, "You've been unconscious for four days. You spent two days in cryosleep, which was not well handled. At least now I know _why_ it was so screwed up," she said, talking to herself again. "Then you've had three operations in the past two days. And all this time you've been getting your nutrition through a vein. You're just weak."

"Now I'm hungry, too."

"You can't have any solid food yet."

"Oh, great! Can I at least get the rest of me unstrapped?"

"Sure. But don't try to sit up. You're not ready for it yet."

"What are you, a nurse?"

"No, I'm a doctor." Seeing his expression, she said, "Don't say it."

"You don't look old enough to be a doctor."

"You had to say it, didn't you?" She sighed. "Take my word for it, I'm a doctor. Dr. Gwenyth Hammond. But call me Gwen." She held out a hand.

He actually got his own hand high enough to shake. "Now can I have a cigarette? I know I had some in my jacket."

"You can't smoke in here."

"Why not?"

"There's stuff in here that might blow up if you do."

He pondered whether that was a good enough reason, then decided it wasn't. But before he could explain this to her, he abruptly went back to sleep.

: ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

Gwen was informing him that the cigarettes in his jacket had probably been disposed of along with his clothes, when he'd first been put into the cryoshell, but midway through the first sentence, she realized she'd lost her audience. He'd gone to sleep. She shut up and stood staring down at him silently.

He had beautiful mahogany-brown eyes, even if the left one, as she knew from the records, was a functioning bio-prosthetic. When he smiled, his eyes smiled before his mouth did. And he had a kind of bravado, a gallant courage, that she liked. She'd had patients wake up and give her a hard time before, but never one that made her laugh or challenged her wit.

She felt shaky at the knees, but that, she was sure, was from finding out who he really was. Even without his name, she would have known she was mistaken in her guess about his identity. The ISSP would never hire a man like this one, even for undercover work. She could see already that he was a maverick type, nothing like the usual ISSP man, just by the way he teased her and treated his situation so lightly. But not in a million years would she have ever guessed he was Spike Spiegel. Like everyone else in ISSP, she'd believed Spiegel was dead.

Dr. Chan had assumed she had probably never heard of Spiegel, and under ordinary circumstances he would have been right. She hated and feared the syndicates and adopted an ostrichlike view of them — have nothing they wanted, pay them no attention, and maybe they'd leave you alone. But thanks to Bertie Mkambo, she knew more about Spiegel than she'd ever wanted to know. She clasped her hands together. Wouldn't Bertie love to be here now, taking care of _this_ patient! According to Bertie, officers of the ISSP were split almost evenly about whether they believed Spiegel was a hero, a lunatic, or a man willing to do anything to take over the Dragons, but naturally Bertie had no doubts. Spiegel was a warrior, and therefore a hero to him.

She wondered if she would ever get to tell Bertie that she'd met Spike Spiegel. She doubted it, however, given the oaths she'd sworn when she'd come here. That was too bad. She was tempted, but when she gave her word, she didn't break it, and Hitchcock had made her swear just about every way except on her parents' grave, not to mention sign in six or eight different places on two different security documents.

That train of thought led her to wonder just why Spiegel was here, and under such secrecy, and why his death had been faked. Who, exactly, was Chan working for? What department? And what were they up to? How could Spike Spiegel possibly benefit the ISSP? She sat down at her desk, hooked her toes behind the stool rail, put her head in her hands, and tried to think.

Much later, she gave it up as futile. She had a lot of theories, some of them truly bizarre, but she simply didn't have enough facts. Whatever it was that Chan and his bosses wanted with Spiegel, though, she was sure it wasn't good, and for some reason she'd become protective of this patient with whom she'd spent so much silent time. She hoped he would wake up again before Chan returned, so she could talk to him. He might have an idea why the ISSP would help him like this. It might even be something harmless, and she was making menacing mountains out of molehills.

But she didn't think so.

He woke up again less than an hour later. She was reading, trying to find a way to ignore the time trickling away before Chan showed up, and once more his voice startled her. "Hey. Gwen. I'm hungry."

She jumped yet again, dropping the book on the floor.

"A little old-fashioned, isn't it?"

_Huh?_ "What is?"

He looked pointedly down at the book.

She bent to scoop it up. "I like real books. They're, um, they're not cold. That doesn't make any sense, does it?"

"Sure it does. You have anything around here to eat?"

"I told you, it's too soon for you to have solid food."

"How about a drink?"

"Water, yes."

"You know, you don't _look_ like a sadist."

She giggled, then stopped herself. What was it about this guy that made her act closer to 16 than 26? "Would you like some water?"

"Yeah, if that's all you've got. Do I get to sit up?"

"I'll crank up the bed." She absently told the computer how many degrees, her eyes and attention on her patient. "You know, you're looking a lot better already."

"Better than what?" he asked drily.

"Better than a corpse," she smiled. "You can get water at any time from this tube, at least as long as you're sitting. Do you feel up to talking?"

He was drinking, and she tried to hide her impatience until he was satisfied. She wasn't too successful at it; when he gave her his attention, it was with a satirically cocked eyebrow. "We don't have much time," she explained.

"Before what?"

"Before Dr. Chan comes by to check on you. Do you really have no idea why the ISSP might want to help you?"

"None at all." His voice was stronger now, with more expression. She could tell that he not only didn't know, he didn't really care much, either. "Nobody owes me any favors, and I don't owe any. I don't even know anybody in the ISSP. The closest I come is a friend of mine, and he's not ISSP any more."

"Mr. Black," she assumed aloud.

"You know Jet?"

She smiled. "No, but I've heard of him, very recently. My old boss is a big fan of yours."

"A _what?"_

"It's a long story. We'll save it for later. Let me tell you what's going on here, quickly, before Chan gets back."

"Go ahead."

Even knowing she couldn't be overheard, she unconsciously leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. "Understand, I'm on the proverbial need-to-know basis, and they don't think I need to know _anything_, so this won't take long. First, you were brought here in complete secrecy. As far as anybody in the outside world knows, you are dead and buried. For several reasons, I believe that only a handful of people in the ISSP know that you're here. We're not even being monitored, which is why I can talk to you like this. I'm the only other medical person of any description on your case. Dr. Chan and his two bosses are the only people involved that I've been allowed to meet, and I'm not allowed to discuss any detail of the case with anyone or even leave this compound until the assignment is over."

He smiled crookedly. "That must put a real crimp in your social life."

"Are you taking this seriously?"

"Sure. What else do you know?"

"Nothing. Except, of course, the obvious. The ISSP is investing a lot of money into getting you back on your feet. They're going to want something in return, and if you don't give it to them, you might end up really dead. They've already got a grave to put you in, after all."

"You sure are a cheerful little thing, aren't you?"

"I'm _scared."_ That was the first time she'd admitted it, even to herself. But she was scared, and not just for him. She hopped from one foot to the other. "I hope this is all something silly and I'm just imagining too much."

"It doesn't sound like it to me."

"You believe me."

He smiled. "You have an honest face."

: ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

_They've already got a grave to put you in, after all._ Not at all a cheering thought. Now that he was sure he was alive, Spike didn't think he was quite ready to be dead again. It was one thing to go out and face death when both the past and the future were blocked by painful memories and unpaid blood-debts, and to face it at the hands of the man he'd sworn to kill. There was a kind of excitement in that, and justice as well. It was another thing altogether to sit helpless – and he was helpless right now, he could still barely move, dammit, he needed a _meal_ – and let the ISSP obliterate his very existence. He flexed his wrist, which had a mark from the leather straps. _Bad move, boys. You should have just left me there to finish dying._ Whatever the ISSP wanted him for, it was bound to be no good. He was going to discover their game, and then he would find a way out of here without obliging them.

And then what? Go where? The only place he could think of was the Bebop. If he had a home at all, anywhere... well, the Bebop was it.

Wouldn't Jet be surprised if he turned up again? He smiled at the thought, and wondered if Faye were still on the ship. He doubted it. He didn't think Jet and Faye could stand each other for 48 hours, never mind a week or so. Not without him to pick on, and only each other. Of course, knowing Faye, they probably made a bet as to whether he came back or not. He wondered who had bet against him, as if he couldn't guess. She was going to have to give the money back. _That's a laugh. Ol' Jet'll just be another of the people she owes money to._

He glanced at Gwen, who was busily doing something with the machine feeding him antibiotics, dictating quietly into a suspended microphone as she worked. She didn't look like a doctor, but she acted reassuringly like one. She said she was scared, but he wondered if she really understood that, if they had a grave ready for him, they surely had one for her, too. And while they had a use for him, when he was healthy they would no longer have a use for Gwen, and she'd end up there. She had "expendable" written all over her.

_That's not your responsibility. She's smart, she can get herself out of this. You're going to have a hard enough time just saving your own butt._ Yet he recognized, with a wry self-knowledge, that he couldn't just leave her here to her fate without making some effort to help her. At least for the moment, her destiny was tied with his, whether either of them liked it or not.

Of course, the whole situation could be academic. The ISSP might want something he'd be glad to give them. They'd all be friends and all be happy.

_They've already got a grave to put you in, after all._ No, he didn't think it would be that easy.

But it was going to be interesting.


	9. Chapter 9 The Selkie by Tian Ning

Jet meets some old friends, goes for a drink, and sees an interesting young woman named Tula who seems to have a message for him, although they've never met before.

This chapter is by Tian Ning.

Again, we don't own the Bebop characters. All other characters are our own inventions. This chapter is PG13 for a little bad language.

**_The Selkie_**

"Would you care to state your business?" The young man mounted on an Appaloosa addressed him with strained politeness as he sighted down the barrel of his rifle. Jet squinted back up at him and said nothing. 

"Speak up or be arrested," the man continued. "Your choice." 

"Are you closing your right eye?" Jet said sternly. 

"Excuse me?" 

"You are," Jet continued. "You're closing your right eye. After all this time, you're still doing that! Have you ever actually hit anything with that rifle? Am I going to have to come over there and whup your ass?" 

The dark eyes narrowed, then widened. Almost imperceptibly, the rifle's muzzle dipped away from its mark. "Jet?" He paused and stared. "Jet _Black_?" 

Seven heads swiveled to stare at the leader. 

Jet slowly lowered his hands. "Did you miss me?" 

The man was already sliding off his horse and sprinting across the space dividing them. For a moment, he stood before Jet, leaning back at the hips, arms thrown wide. "Son of a bitch!" he laughed. "Don't tell me I haven't changed since you last saw me. How the hell did you recognize me? " His eyes roved up to Jet's scalp. "How the hell was I supposed to recognize you without your hair?" 

He laughed again, and lunged forward, throwing his arms around Jet, nearly knocking him down. Jet grunted and stiffened. "Hey, go easy on an old man!" 

The younger man released him, and slapped his palms against Jet's arms. As his fingers tightened on Jet's unyielding shoulder, he glanced down at the cybernetic hand extending from the sleeve. He stepped back, staring, and his smile faded. "What the hell happened to your arm!" 

The other seven lowered their guns and exchanged glances, but did not dismount. 

"Zack," said one. "Would you mind giving us a clue here?" 

Zack turned his body back towards his companions, but his eyes dragged away from Jet's metal hand more slowly. "This," he said, "is the grandson of our patron, Cyril Black. This is the man who taught me to shoot. Whenever I didn't do it exactly _his_ way, he always said he was going to come over and whup my ass." 

None of the men seemed impressed. "Well, shit," said one, angular and tall in his saddle. "You might have told someone you were coming. Would have saved me a hell of a ride. I came all the way from the next ridge. My mare nearly gave out on me." 

Zack ignored his companion's irritation and beamed back at Jet. "What are you doing here? I thought you said you were never coming back." 

Jet shrugged. "Slight change of plans." He scanned across the semi-circle of faces. "So are you going to introduce me to your posse?" 

"Oh, right! Sorry!" Zack, shuffled backwards, and pointed to each one in turn. "My cousins, Little River and Snow Fox. You might remember my little brothers, Bill and Reynard, even if they don't remember you." The twins smiled self-consciously, and lifted their hands in greeting. "The big, ugly one is Kai." The darkly handsome man on his grey gelding spat a stream of tobacco and gave a lopsided grin. 

"That's Black Horse," the tall, angular boy who had complained about the wild ride gave Jet a nod. "And Steve." The last of them, barrel-chested and with a pock-marked face, saluted Jet with two fingers against his temple. "Also my cousins. We're all on guard duty 'til dusk." 

"All eight of you came to handle one little poacher?" 

"Don't flatter yourself," Black Horse smoothly flipped his rifle into its holster. "It's been boring as hell out here, and we were hoping for a little action. Only an idiot would poach around here. And they're in short supply 'cause we've hauled 'em all in." 

"Dad says while there's still fruit on the trees, we have to guard it," said Zack. "No sense in letting anyone think we've gone soft." He motioned with his head towards Kai. "Kai was up there in the trees when he saw you go into the house, and he called the rest of us. We couldn't figure who'd be stupid enough to go poking around here for trouble." 

"I'm stupid enough to be poking around for Laughing Bull," Jet said. "But Andrew tells me he's off somewhere in the hills, meditating and," Jet lifted a hand and waggled his fingers, "doing his spells and stuff. Any chance you know where I can find him?" 

"Good luck," said Snow Fox. "When Grampa doesn't want company, he doesn't get found. We haven't seen him for a week." 

Jet rested his fists on his hips. "Well, shit," he muttered. "I can't really afford to wait around. But I just blew 35,000 getting here." Hearing himself, he smiled slightly. It was going to be a hard habit to break, counting every Woolong he spent. 

"He might show up pretty soon," said Zack. "Grampa usually comes out of hiding a couple of weeks before Dark Day. This year we have clan coming from all over for solstice celebrations. Hope you don't mind we cleaned up your place in case we needed extra beds. We didn't expect you to show up." 

"I won't get in your way," Jet assured him. "I've got my bunk on the Bebop. As soon as I get a chance to talk with Bull, I'm out of here. Andrew seemed to think the Old Man knew I was coming, so I'm kind of surprised he's hiding." 

"He'll find you," said Steve, his face serious. "If he wants to." 

Jet fidgeted for a moment. He hadn't planned on socializing, but it seemed right to be the gracious host. "Soyou guys want some coffee? I can brew you some of your own." 

"We'll take a rain check, Jet," said Zack. "Still on duty for another few hours." 

"I'll be gone before then." 

"If you're on foot, you'll be wanting to head out pretty soon to make the main road before the front comes through. Supposed to snow tonight. I can bring you a horse, if you want." 

"Nah. Last time I rode a horse was probably the last time I saw you," Jet said. "An hour in the saddle, and I probably wouldn't be able to walk for a week. Thanks, just the same." 

"Suit yourself," said Zack, mounting. "We'll probably see you in town tonight, eh?" 

"Maybe so." 

"Have you been by there yet? You'll probably think it's changed a lot. But what's really amazing is how much it hasn't! There hasn't been a bad rock fall around here for more than ten years." 

"Saw the town from the air. It's changed, all right. A lot of things have." He glanced back at the doorway. "Some not." 

"Grampa makes sure the place is looked after," said Zack. "He says we owe that to your granddad." 

Jet smiled slightly, but said nothing as Zack mounted up and wheeled his horse around. With mixed emotions, he watched them leave. When Zack, bringing up the rear, turned to send a final salute, Jet suddenly saw him as the six-year old boy he had tutored in gunmanship on so many sunny, dusty afternoons. When the last of them vanished into the brush, he had never felt so old or alone. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Despite the handicap of his healing leg, Jet hiked until the sun cast orange. The rocky outcroppings he had known so well as a boy were thick with trees and shrubs now. Back then, he hadn't really paid attention to the many pine and hardwood seedlings sprouting in the meadows below, and from any slight crag in the cliffs. He had assumed that they, like all before them, would die before they could reach any appreciable size. Breathing the resiny scent, he was glad he'd been wrong. 

The Canadian sunset was different, too. He'd seen plenty of Terran sunsets in the past sixteen years, from the desert at Doohan's hangar to the ruins of what had been Singapore, where they'd left Ed for the last time. Before now, he hadn't been able to compare those to the sunsets of his childhood, when the light had always sunk into a haze of red and orange over the scorched hills. The colors weren't as dramatic now. The sky was wan, the sun whitish as it traveled towards the horizon. He wondered if it was the northerly storm over his shoulder that made the horizon seem so pale. 

No. As Andrew had said, the dust was settling. Earth was changing again. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

The weariness in his bones as he trudged the darkening main road was the good kind. Muscles kept hard in the Bebop's weight room weren't accustomed to rock climbing, and he knew his wounded leg would be sore in the morning. He didn't mind. The wind ruffled his fur cap. A snowflake wet the side of his nose. He looked up with mild dismay at the approaching storm. Even under his heavy coat, these threadbare clothes--the warmest he owned--weren't going to keep him comfortable if it started to snow in earnest. He picked up his pace. The settlement shouldn't be far now. Might be able to take shelter there and warm up before the long, cold walk to the Hammerhead. 

Turning a bend, he saw a light flicker at the side of the road. As he drew closer, it flared, arced upwards, and swung gently over the street. A dark shape was moving in the lamp's glow, and as he approached, a man's voice called out casually. 

"Evening, Sir!" 

The man who had just hung the kerosene lamp was dressed in a stovepipe hat, a bright woolen muffler, and heavy black felt coat with tails. He smiled, and tipped the brim of his hat as Jet came near, then turned to close the amber glass door of the lantern he had just lit. 

"Evening," Jet returned with a nod. "How far to town?" 

"About half a kilometer," answered the man. He leaned on the hooked rod he had used to take down the lamp and smiled. "You've come at a pretty miserable time of year for a tourist." 

"Used to live around these parts," said Jet, casting a cool eye on the man's clothing. "Before it turned into a tourist trap." 

The man laughed and plucked at his woolen lapel with his thumb. "Hey, I'm a starving college student. Someone's got to light the lamps, and I might as well add some atmosphere. The tourists love to have their pictures taken with a real, live lamplighter, and the tips can be pretty good." 

"I see." Jet said. "So anything going on in town tonight? Any live music?" 

"Try Duffy's. This place is dead as hell on a Tuesday night, but they usually have something going on. Maybe a local band. The pros don't usually play 'til the weekend." 

"Better than nothing," said Jet, and turned up the street with a wave. "Thanks." 

As he rounded another bend in the road, a curving arc of the old-fashioned gas lamps lit his way. The wind was at his back, blowing from the hills, but the forest served as a brake, and he caught a whiff of barbecue. He reached into his hip pocket and flexed his wallet. The cash card resisted firmly, and he smiled. 

The snow began to flurry. He pulled his collar up and tugged his earflaps down to no avail as a blast of wind raced up his back and around his neck. By the time the town's glow finally greeted him in the distance, his teeth were chattering. When at last the trees parted to reveal the familiar old main street, festooned with Christmas lights, he hardly realized that he had stopped just to stare. 

With one deep breath, he felt the scents of snow and smoke and pine rush through him and again wash away the years. He looked down and took small delight in watching the snow gather and scatter across the tops of his shoes, looked up and saw the same on the rooftops. The shops were all open, and far more places than he remembered had large, plate-glass windows in front, filled with wares. The folks really must not be worried about rock showers, to be this bold. But from what he'd seen in the hills, they might be right. The place seemed undisturbed enough for life to return and thrive in a way he had not seen in his lifetime. 

Most of the shops and restaurants were new to him, but he held a vague hope that one old familiar spot might still be there. He scanned up the street through the haze of falling snow, not exactly sure of his bearings, but figuring he'd know the sign if it was still up. He walked carefully among the passersby, who seemed to be taking more trouble than he to seek shelter from the snow. 

He came to a corner, turned his head, and there it was. The door was marked by nothing more than an old plank suspended by chains, its font and logo painted to resemble the sign of an old English pub. The sign had been artistically weathered when they'd hung it up thirty years ago, opening the first aboveground pub in New Toronto, and it looked the same now. The words arching around the image of a white deer were still clear: White Stag Tavern. Est. 2040. 

An old barker was stationed at the door, beckoning in a thick, somewhat suspect Scottish brogue to passersby. He spotted Jet. With a mittened hand, he batted at the muffler covering his chin and pulled it lower. "Come on in, Lad," he waved a hand towards the door. "Live music tonight! Happy hour starts in forty five minutes!" 

"What's playing?" 

"Black Valley, a local band. Traditional tunes from the old country." 

Jet grunted and gazed down the street. "Anyplace around here got some jazz or blues?" 

The man fumbled off one of his mittens, reached into his parka pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. When he spoke again, the brogue was mysteriously gone. "Hold on" he squinted and scanned the sheet. "Let's see. Rock n' Roll at Your Father's Moustache. Turkish music and a belly dancer at Maroosh. Got some Country Western at Duffy's" 

"_God_, no," mumbled Jet. 

"Baroque trio at Lacey's." The barker didn't lift his face from the list, but his eyes roved up under bushy brows to surreptitiously appraise Jet's attire. "Though you might not be outfitted for Lacey's tonight, Sir." 

"I'm never outfitted for Lacey's," said Jet. He crossed his arms, tucked his chin as the wind picked up again, and scanned down the street distractedly. The barker was still reading from the list when Jet noticed a storefront window display of winter gear across the street. 

"Thanks," said Jet, already starting to wander across the street. "I'll think about it." 

"Do come on back when you're ready, Sir," said the barker, regaining his brogue. "We've got the finest selection of single malts in town, we do." 

Jet stopped short, and slowly turned to face the man. "Included in happy hour?" 

The man gave a mischievous wink. "Afraid only if 'twere your birthday, Sir!" 

"Yeah?" 

"A well-kept secret here, Sir." 

A grin spread slowly over Jet's face. "I'll be back." 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

Half an hour later, Jet emerged from the shop, stretched out his arms, and challenged the wind to bite through his new plaid woolen shirt, denim jeans, and long underwear. In one gloved hand, he held a bag with his old clothes. He smiled slowly at the waste can chained to the store's timber support beams, and with a flourish, slam-dunked the bag. He tugged up his collar and nestled into it. "Whoever said money can't buy happiness never wore silk longjohns," he muttered. 

He wandered along the street for a while, waiting until it was closer to happy hour. When he finally stepped back under the eaves of the White Stag and brushed the dusting of snow from his shoulders, the barker greeted him and sent him through the door with a clap on the back. The floor grate was already crusted with snow, and Jet stomped more onto it from the tread of his own new leather boots. Fire-warmed air enveloped him and prickled at his chilled cheeks--a sensation he had long forgotten. 

"What can I bring you, Sir?" One of the college kids waiting tables was upon him before he was done hanging up his coat and hat. 

"Shot of your best single malt, straight up, and a bowl of chili." He scanned the nearly empty room, spied a candle-lit table in the dark corner beside the band's soundboard and pointed. "I'll be over there." 

"Sir, I" 

Jet turned to the kid and fixed his gaze. "On second thought, make it a double. And wait 'til happy hour starts before you pour. I intend to line 'em up tonight." The kid was following him to the table, hovering close as Jet slid wearily into the booth. He looked up and once again met the waiter's eyes. "Are you still here? Okay, on third thoughtbring me the bottle." 

The kid screwed up his brow with the look of a server who knew he was about to blow his gratuity. "AhI'm sorry, Sir. But single malts aren't on the happy hour menu." 

"Fellow outside said that you'd make an exception for a birthday." Jet had already drawn his I.D. from his wallet and flipped it out at the server, covering his name, but not his photo or birth date. 

The kid grinned. "You must have impressed him, Sir. He doesn't tell most out-of-towners that rule. And it's still only half price. Would you like to see a price list first?" 

Jet pulled out his wallet, activated his cash card with a fingertip, tapped in an amount, and handed it to the waiter. "Just bring me the best you have. Keep twenty percent for yourself." 

The waiter took the card, glanced at it, and did a double take. "Sir?" 

Jet stretched and folded his arms behind his head. "I don't need it aged any more than it already is." 

"Yes, Sir!" said the waiter, his grin spreading. "Coming right up!" 

A few moments later, a steaming bowl of chili, a basket of hot biscuits, a bottle of pre-gate 1975 Balvenie and an elegantly cut shotglass glowed in the candlelight at his elbow. Jet glanced up as the waiter left, only then noticing that every server in the place was lined up behind the bar and staring, fish-eyed. He flushed momentarily, glad he had taken the precaution of setting the cash card to conceal his identity. 

While he waited for the chili to cool, he idly watched the band setting up. They had an impressive variety of instruments, and when the fiddler played a quick riff as he tuned, Jet thought the music might actually be bearable. 

Close at his right, someone was moving in the dim, gold light of the soundboard. 

"Jack," she called towards the stage. "Try number five." 

The fiddler turned and sawed a measure into the mike, then leaned into it. "Check." 

From the corner of his eye, Jet noticed that the woman at the soundboard had turned towards him. "Sound okay to you?" 

"Sounds good to me," he said, giving full attention to the whiskey he was pouring. 

"Whoa." It was the woman's voice again. "Is that the bottle they've had up over the bar for the past four years?" 

"I have no idea." 

"Well, it must be, because that's the only one in the place." 

"Then I guess it is." Jet glanced at her impassively, and she smiled. 

For a long moment, Jet returned her gaze without smiling. There was something odd and familiar about that smile. He couldn't quite place it. Just a direct, guileless warmth that sent a strange sensation to the base of his throat. 

As she turned back to the board, a curtain of long, brown hair dropped down to cover the side of her face, and the moment was over. Jet silently shook himself, wondering at the strange feelings that seemed to be assailing him from every corner and every person since he'd arrived. He lifted the glass to his lips, closed his eyes and inhaled the heavenly scent. 

"Happy Birthday, Running Rock." The voice came from so close beside him that he started and nearly spilled his drink. 

"Easy, Jet," the voice said. "That's expensive stuff to be snorting out your nose." 

Jet stared straight ahead at the stage as he knocked the butt of the shot glass down on the table. Without facing the source of the voice, he slowly shook his head and growled. "Then how about buying me a replacement shot, Tom?" 

He swiveled around as Tom RedCrow emerged from the corner, into the candlelight. "Afraid you got the only bottle. Looks as if you've got enough to share, though." 

"You're lucky I'm feeling generous this evening." 

Jet caught the waiter's eye, pointed to his shot glass and bowl, and raised two fingers. He watched in satisfaction as the kid scurried off at his command. 

Jet raised a hand and slapped it into RedCrow's palm. "What brings you to this little hole? Looking for me?" 

"You know, Zack mentioned that you seemed to think everyone was looking for you," he said. "What makes you think you're so important? I'm just here to see the band." He glanced over Jet's head at the woman at the sound board. "Hey, Tula!" 

"Hey, Tom!" she said, glancing up and sending that smile again. "Did you bring your drum?" 

"Not after last time." 

"Oh, good." 

"Brat." 

She sidled out of the sound box and walked towards the stage with a wave. "Showtime!" 

Jet looked up at Tom as he settled into the booth. Except for a couple of gray hairs at the temples, his face seemed unchanged. It was as unlined, flawless and ridiculously handsome as back in their college days, when Tom had been the object of desire of every girl in town. "I don't remember you being a fan of folk music." 

"I like folk okay," said Tom. "But mainly I'm here in support of my colleagues." He leaned back against the seat and stretched. "Everyone in the band is from the U, and two of the guys are from Computer Science." 

"So salaries at the U. are about what I remember, eh?" 

Tom gave a sharp laugh. "Right. If it wasn't for the orchards, I might be up there singing myself." 

"Then I guess everyone in this bar should be thankful for the orchards." 

"You're hilarious. You and Tula ought to start a stand-up routine. I'll bring the eggs." 

The place was starting to fill up, now that happy hour had started. The waiter deposited another shotglass and bowl of chili in front of Tom. 

"Hey, now it's a party," said Tom. "Do we get cake?" 

The door swung open, blowing a slight chill towards them. Instinctively, Jet glanced towards the doorway. He stiffened as the door shut behind four men in ISSP-issue parkas and two others wearing New Toronto Police Department uniforms. He watched intently as they stamped the grate and sauntered silently towards a table at the front of the room, beside the stage. 

Tom was idly watching them, too. "Looks like some of your old buddies arehey, you okay, Jet?" 

"Fine," he said, his voice taut. But as he watched them place their orders, he relaxed. None of them was looking around, and none had the watchful aspect of a detective. Probably just ISSP grunts and NTPD street cops coming off duty. "They're not looking for anything." He announced under his breath. 

"Not unless you count the girls in the band," Tom smirked. Tula had brought the other woman performer to the edge of the stage, where they both sat down, cross-legged, and talked to the cops at the table. "That short, curvy one with the red hair is Jen," he continued. "She's a post-doc in the Math Department." He sipped his whiskey and flashed his eyebrows. "Fire on the mountaintop, fire in the valley, I'll bet. Wonder what it would take to find out." 

Jet shot him a sidelong glance and tipped back his shotglass. "So how's Marilyn?" 

Tom laughed. "Aw, come on, Jet. You don't have to bust my chops for just window shopping. You can't tell me those girls aren't easy on the eyes." 

"You've never seen a girl you didn't think was easy on the eyes." 

"Grouch," said Tom. "Cheer up. At the break, I'll introduce you." 

"Don't do me any favors," said Jet, breaking half a biscuit into his chili. "Women are all nuts." 

Tom stared at him with mild amusement. "Still playing the monk, eh? What happened to that girl you met on Ganymede? The one who ran that restaurant. I figured you'd have half a dozen kids by now." 

Jet shoved a spoonful of chili into his mouth and spoke around it. "Can we talk about something else?" 

"Hmm. Okay. You pick." 

"How about your father?" said Jet. "He hijacks me here, tells your boy that he's waiting for me, and then Zack says he's out hiding in the hills somewhere with no E.T.A." 

Tom's face grew serious. "He's waiting for you, Running Rock." 

Jet stopped a spoonful of chili in mid-air. "Ah. And when were you going to tell me this?" 

"When you asked," said Tom. 

"Are you _trying_ to sound like him, or is it just hereditary?" 

Tom lifted his shotglass and stared through it at the candle's flame. "He wants me to bring you to the sweat lodge. Late." 

"The sweat lodge!" Jet rolled his eyes. "Oh, cripes. Is he going to get all mystical on me? I just want to talk to him." 

"About what?" 

Reflexively, Jet started to answer his childhood friend, "About a" he trailed off, and looked at Tom with mild annoyance. "What makes you think it's any of your business?" 

"It's not." Tom shrugged. "But don't worry. I don't shoot fish in a barrel." 

Jet turned a blank gaze to the stage. He raised his shotglass, rested his elbow on the table, and gently swirled the whiskey. "Abouta dream I had." 

The playfully snide retort he'd expected didn't come. When he looked back at Tom, his friend's face was still solemn. "Well. That's different." Tom sipped his drink. "I guess maybe we're both starting to come to our senses about stuff like that, eh? It used to make me nuts that Andrew was following my dad's path. But some pretty weird shit's been happening lately." 

They both fell silent for a while as more people arrived and filled the tables. Before they spoke again, the band struck up a loud, galloping rhythm, jarring their attention back to the now-crowded pub. Tom seemed relieved for the break in tension, and gave a whoop of encouragement. The guitarist, his shoulder-length silver hair tied back in a ponytail, glanced out towards the sound through square-rimmed glasses, grinned and nodded at Tom. 

"That's Phil George," Tom leaned over and spoke loudly, to be heard over the music. "He's Comp Sci, and so's the pale guy in black. Gordon Budger. Good guys. Can you believe a couple of nerds could play like that?" 

The corner of Jet's mouth had drawn back in a smile. The band was tight. And the tune was one his grandfather and friends had often played, a rousing slip-jig. He relaxed and allowed himself to be drawn into the festive mood, feeling almost as if he'd never left New Toronto. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

The music went on for an hour without a break, and by the time the band took a short leave, both Jet and Tom were feeling the effects of the whiskey, the warmth, and the crowd's enthusiasm. 

Tom thumped his palm down on the table. "Still too shy to meet the band?" he said. "I'm going up to say hello." 

"I'll wait here," said Jet. "It's always fun to watch from a distance while you strike out." 

Tom gave a dismissive snort, and started to wander towards the stage. Tula and Jen were standing by the cops' table. One of the men reached out, wrapped Tula's waist in his arm, and pulled her close. She resisted mildly, then gave in, hugged his head, and rubbed it playfully with her knuckles. Tom pulled back. "Yeesh!" he said. "I thought Tula might have better taste in men." 

Hunched over his elbows, Jet grumbled. "A gal could do worse than an ISSP man." 

Tom waved him off and left. He spent some time visiting with his two colleagues, then moved away and beckoned to Tula and Jen, who took a moment to extricate themselves from the cops' attentions. 

Jet watched as Tom leaned close to the women, speaking quietly to them. His friend moved his hand in time with some unheard music, and it looked to Jet as if he were humming. Jen was shaking her head, but Tula had screwed up her brow and bent closer to listen. After a moment's listening, she leaned back, nodded and said something back to Tom. Tom glanced over his shoulder at Jet, grinned, and--to Jet's dismay--pointed at him. Tula and Jen peered out into the darkness, spied Jet's silhouette, then waved and blew kisses. 

"Happy Birthday!" Tula wordlessly mouthed at him, and another smile flashed from the bright, grey-green eyes. 

To Jet's surprise, he felt his ears grow warm, and a not-unpleasant sensation ripple through his belly. He twisted his wrist and addressed the shotglass in his hand. "You're nothing but trouble. I think I've had enough of you for tonight." 

He glowered back at the stage from under his brows, and waved once, in what he hoped was a dismissive fashion. The last thing he wanted tonight was to have anyone draw attention to him. He noted with vague relief that the cops seemed to be more interested in watching the girls than in paying any mind to the object of their _faux_ flirting. He was glad he'd picked this dark corner. 

By the time Tom wandered back to their booth, the band was assembling again, and Jen had taken the microphone. "We have a special request," she said. "For a special song on a special birthday." 

Jet winced and sent Tom a withering look. Tom grinned back. "Don't worry," he said in a stage whisper. "They're not going to sing 'Happy Birthday to You. I think you'll like this one. At least you used to." The crowd quieted, as the low drone of an Uillean pipe rose through the smoke. 

"I don't like surpri" Jet's voice trailed off, and an icy pang shot through his gut as a tinwhistle joined in, wailing a familiar, mournful melody over the pipes' drone. His throat constricted almost painfully as he recognized the bars of the old ballad he'd always asked his grandfather to play, though he'd never known the words or name of the song. 

"It's a very old Scottish tune," continued Tula, her voice low. "A little bit sad for a birthday, if you ask me." 

"But we never refuse special requests!" finished Jen, and stepped back from the mike took up her small, Celtic harp, and joined the tinwhistle's melody. 

"It's called The Selkie," said Tula, and as the music swelled, she closed her eyes and sang. _A wounded sailor lies alain,  
And aye, he sighs by lily wean,  
"Upon this stane I'm cast ashore  
My life's blood flows into the sea."_

Jet swallowed hard and frowned, refusing to look at Tom. "You son of a bitch," he whispered. 

"See?" Jet heard Tom's voice as if from a great distance. "I knew you'd like it. Can that girl sing, or what! Like a fucking angel!" _ He watched the tide as it rolled in  
The moonlight glancing off the wave  
And frae that mirror of the sky  
Two eyes looked up, his face to have. _

And out she rose from midst the waves,  
And a welcome guest, I'm sure was she,  
Saying "Here am I, thy healing love,  
Seal up thy wounds, I can for thee. 

A wave of chills rode up Jet's neck, and he closed his eyes. But now all he could see against the dark of his eyelids was Spike. Spike and flashes of that blonde--Julia--from what he'd seen on the disk Bob had given him. It was her face that turned to him as his dream replayed, her face on the selkie's body. _ Cold ocean dripped from yellow hair  
As down she bent to kiss his brow.  
"I leave my pelt upon the shore  
Come free, my love, swim with me now." _

The dream whirled back into his mind's eye with terrible clarity. With every sweet note, the bitter images floated before him, and he almost felt sick. Spike was walking through the storm-roiled water again, engulfed in the yellow hair of the woman on the rock, disappearing in the metallic, reddish coils of the dragon. _ And he had touched her hair of gold,  
She'd placed her hand upon his knee,   
Saying "When I'm far and far frae land,  
I'll sing for you to come to me."_

"I am a woman on the land,  
I am a selkie on the sea,  
And as my hand your life hath saved,  
Yet so will I my nurse's fee."

"And it shall come to pass on a summer's day,   
When the sun shines bright on every stane,  
I'll come and fetch my dearest love,  
And teach you how to swim the faem." 

Spike's voice was at his shoulder, close in his ear. _"She was the only one who made me feel truly alive"_

_"But thy kin shall find a brother pale,  
And a right fine gunner I'm sure he'll be,  
And the very first shot that he e'er shoots,  
Will kill both my true love and me." _

The pipes, tinwhistle and harp played the haunting song, fading softly until Phil brought the tune to a finish with a nod. As the crowd broke into quiet applause, Tula leaned into the mike, looked into the darkness directly at Jet, and said quietly, "Happy Birthday, Running Rock." 

Jet stared, open-mouthed, unable to take his eyes away from Tula's. He knew that Tom had told her what to play and what to say. He knew she could not see him, and probably didn't even care that he was there. But it all seemed too close, too wrong. The blood pounded in his throat, blurring his vision with every heartbeat. 

"Why did you pick that song?" Jet's voice was low, and sounded harsher than he intended. "What else do you know about what's going on? Did your father say something to you?" 

Jet didn't look at his old friend's face, but could hear mild alarm in his voice. "What are you talking about? You used to love that song when you were a kid. Don't you remember when we" 

"I remember!" he snapped quietly. "Is that why you told them to play it? That's the only reason?" 

"Jesus, Jet," Tom sounded wounded. "What other reason would I have? I sure didn't think it would upset you." 

Jet was silent for a moment, weighing whether to say more. "So it had nothing to do with my dream." 

He felt as if Tom's eyes were burning a hole into the side of his head. His friend, too, was silent for a long time. "Okay, you _definitely_ need to see Laughing Bull," he said at last. 

"Now don't I wish I'd said that!" Jet turned his head sharply and met Tom's somber gaze. 

"Shit, Jet," he said. "I guess this is bigger than I thought." 

Jet lowered his head with an exaggerated, negative nod. "God, I hope not." 

The applause was dying down, and Jet gave a few perfunctory claps before the band launched into a raucous drinking song. He looked around, and everyone in the tavern seemed to be singing along, instantly borne away from the plaintive selkie's song. He seemed to be the only one still in its grip. And try as he might, he was unable to let the other songs loosen its hold. 

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 

A good half-foot of snow had fallen since Jet had entered the White Stag. It was still falling when he and Tom finally stepped out as the place was closing. Along the edges of the rooftops, the Christmas lights had melted depressions into the snow, reflecting their mingled, soft haloes. 

Jet wandered out into the street, and lifted his face, eagerly breathing the cold air. With relief, he felt it clear his head. 

"First real snowfall of the season," said Tom. "I always forget how pretty it is." 

"It's always pretty before you have to start shoveling it." 

Jet glanced over his shoulder to see the band members filing out of the pub. Two of the cops, one ISSP and one NTPD, laden down with music stands and instrument cases, shouldered the heavy door open, and let Tula and Jen lead them outside. Jet turned back to the rooftops, listening idly to their chatter. 

"Aw, come on, Jen!" It was the New Toronto cop, pleading. "The night's young. Duffy's is open for another two hours." 

"No way. Not on a school night." Jen's voice was firm. "I have to teach a calculus workshop at eight." 

"Tibor, she already told you that," said Tula. "You've been on duty since early this morning, anyway. It's late!" 

"You're without mercy," said Tibor. "First you introduce us, and now you're already trying to break us up." 

The other male voice cajoled. "Well, how about you, Tula? You don't look so tired." 

"And I want to keep it that way," she said. "I have to be out in the field doing transects along Old Mill Road at the crack of dawn. I shouldn't even be awake right now." 

Jet smiled at the familiar game. He could see them playing it in his mind, even though he was facing away. 

"Night, Jen!" Tom, at Jet's shoulder, turned and waved. "Night Tula. Thanks for the song. I owe you one." 

"Okay, you're buying the beer next time," said Tula. 

"You're on!" 

"Happy Birthday, Tom's friend!" 

Jet glanced over his shoulder, only one eye visible between his collar and hat. "Thanks." 

The voices and boots squeaking in the snow faded into the distance, muffled by the snowfall, and Jet and Tom were alone. 

Jet stood silently, watching the steam of his breath rise against the falling snowflakes. 

"So," said Tom tentatively. "You ready?" 

Jet sighed. "Ready as I'll ever be. But I need my zipcraft. Give me a lift to where I left it, and I'll follow you to the lodge." 

"Yeah, better to get it now than when you're done," said Tom. "It could be a long night." 


	10. Chapter 10 The Big Picture by Kat

I can't believe I did this... I am so embarrassed... Thank you SO much, Erin, for reminding me that I had posted this elsewhere, but not here at ffnet. eeep!

This is a Spike chapter, written by me (Kat). It's rated PG13 for a little cursing and some mild sexual innuendo.

As always, thanks to our reviewers, who really keep us going. Especially Erin, this time!

: ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

_**The Big Picture**_

Unlike most doctors, Emil Chan didn't bother consulting with his subordinate about his patient's progress. He went directly to the readout and studied it. He was pleased with what he saw. No sign of brain damage from the head injury, thank God, and for the rest, thank cryotechnology and his own skills. Then he saw something that finally made him speak to Dr. Hammond. He whirled and stomped over to her. "The patient was _awake?"_

She lifted her eyes from her book and blinked at him. "Yes, doctor. For a short time."

"You were supposed to call me if there was any change!"

"Oh. I thought that meant any change for the worse."

_Stupid woman._ "How did he seem?"

"Tired, of course, as to be expected from the extreme blood loss and the medications. He wasn't awake long."

His fist clenched, crushing the printout. "Was he coherent? Alert?"

"Yes, doctor. And hungry. He did take some water."

"And held it down?"

"Yes. No trouble. Then he went back to sleep. I didn't think that was worth waking you for."

"Did he speak at all?"

"Yes, doctor."

Once again Chan held his patience with difficulty. "What did he say?" he asked, enunciating every word.

"The expected. He was aware, and wondered where he was and how he'd gotten here."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Not much. Only what I knew, which is that this is an ISSP facility and that you are his doctor."

He began to relax, but only slightly. "Did he tell you his name?"

"Yes. At least I assume it was his name. Undercover agents have a lot of aliases, right?"

"Undercover agents?"

"For the ISSP. Isn't that what he is?"

What a comfortable lie that was! "Something like that, yes. You didn't recognize the name, then?"

"Why would I? It was an odd name, though, which is why I assumed it was an alias. Spike something. Segal, Steegal, something like that. Is that correct, or is his mind wandering?"

He watched her carefully when he said, "His mind isn't wandering. It's Spiegel. Spike Spiegel."

"That was it!" She gazed up at him as if expecting a pat on the head. "Sorry, Dr. Chan. I should have written it down, but I was sure I'd remember it."

He sighed. "If he wakes again, I want to know immediately. You don't talk to him, you call me, no matter when it is. Do you understand?"

"Of course. He probably knows classified stuff I'm not cleared for, right? I'll be sure to do that, doctor." She set down her book and yawned. "Am I off-duty now?"

"Yes. Go on to bed."

As soon as she was gone, he contacted Hitchcock. Hitchcock listened to his account without a single interruption. His first question, when Chan was through, was, "You believe she's that ignorant?"

"You don't know her. I had her when she was in medical school. Her head was always in the clouds. Totally patient-oriented, no larger perspective, mediocre academic skills. If she's ever so much as watched the news once since her father died, it would surprise me greatly. I told you, that's one of the reasons I recommended her for this."

"Well, keep an eye on her anyway. Start making surprise visits. Roberts and I will do the same."

"I will. You want me to wake him so you can talk to him now?"

"Don't be an idiot. We're going to be working for him, remember? We do it all on his schedule. Let him sleep. Just get me immediately when he does wake up."

"What about Cho-Zhou?"

"He'll wait, too. He's not an impatient man. But I think I'll drop a word in his ear that Spiegel is recovering well. I don't want him to become an ambitious man. We can't trust him."

"Can we really trust Spiegel?"

"From what I heard, he honors his mentor. We can trust him as far as we did Mao Yenrai, I believe."

: ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

The next time Spike opened his eyes, the face bending over his was bony, Oriental, and male, topped with thinning grey hair. "You're not half as pretty as Gwen," he observed dispassionately.

"Perhaps not, but you know the saying, handsome is as handsome does. I'm the doctor who saved your life."

He yawned. "I'm sure I'd be more properly grateful if I knew why."

"That's quite simple to explain, really. But I'd rather let someone else do it for me." He crossed the room to a commset and told someone named Hitchcock that Mr. Spiegel was awake.

_Mr. Spiegel, huh? Looks like I'm getting a little respect around here. Now, I wonder why I don't feel exactly flattered?_

The man returned, looking smug. "I'm Dr. Emil Chan, your physician. You're recovering very nicely. Even better than I anticipated. But then, you've got a powerful motivation, right?"

"Other than simple survival instinct, you mean?"

Chan chuckled as if Spike had been joking, which he hadn't. "Is there anything you need to make you more comfortable?"

"Yeah, a few things. First, I want to sit up."

"Easily accomplished," Chan said, and adjusted the bed. "What else?"

"Food. A lot of it. I'm starving."

"You aren't ready for solid food yet."

"That's what Gwen keeps saying. My stomach says I'm ready."

"Your stomach is only in its proper place because of my surgical skill," he said sharply. "If you eat and throw up, you might rip stitches and do yourself a grave injury, perhaps a fatal one. You'll have to trust me on this."

_Well, shit._ "Soup?"

"I suppose clear soup would be all right."

"Egg drop soup."

"We'll see."

"And I want my clothes."

"Your clothes were damaged in the fight beyond even expert repair."

"Then I want someone else's clothes."

"I'll see to it. Anything else?"

"A cigarette. In fact, a whole pack. And don't forget the lighter."

Chan was shocked. "You can't smoke in here!"

"Gwen said that, too. Any reason why the stuff in here that might blow up can't be taken out? If I don't get a smoke soon, I'm going to get really cranky."

This demand was more difficult for Chan to accept, but he did. "I'll have it taken care of. You'll have to give us a day or two."

"A day or two?" Spike repeated wrathfully.

"This lab equipment can't be moved easily."

"I don't know if I can handle another whole day, never mind two."

"I'll get it done as quickly as I can," Chan promised.

This was getting really interesting. What did they need from him that was so important, they were willing to give him pretty much whatever he wanted? Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "What about all these tubes and things? I feel fine, and they're bugging the hell out of me."

Chan scowled, pushed further than he liked already. But he gave in and checked the readouts on the column next to the bed. "Do you feel well enough to walk?"

"Absolutely," Spike lied.

"Then I'll have Miss Hammond take you off the machines this evening."

"Miss Hammond? I thought she was a doctor."

"She is. I should have said Dr. Hammond."

The lack of interest in his voice told Spike as much about where Gwen stood in this man's estimation as the use of the word "Miss". His hunch was right, Gwen was definitely expendable, at least to Chan. And that pissed him off at this guy even more. Nor did Chan help his mood any by spending the next few minutes telling him – in far more detail than he ever wanted – about how he owed his life to Chan's surgical genius.

The door to the lab was open, and the two men who entered did so in almost complete silence, startling Chan, whose back was to them. Spike became instantly more alert. Chan was a jerk, but these two were trouble. If anyone slid him into that grave with his name on it, it would be these guys. The older one was of average height and built square as a brick, with a brushy haircut that emphasized his squareness even more. His eyes were dark and completely expressionless, like a black mirror. The other was taller, about 20 years younger, lanky, with too-long brown hair, and he might have been taken for a scholarly dolt except for his eyes. There was expression in them, all right, the rabid light of the fanatic. Both men had that indefinable air of tough self-sufficiency that marked Jet, and Spike guessed they were ISSP officers.

They introduced themselves simply as Bart Hitchcock and Jeff Roberts. No titles or ranks. Hitchcock pulled up a stool and made himself comfortable. Roberts hovered in the background, and Chan faded away toward the other end of the room. That made things pretty clear. Spike gave his attention to Hitchcock, who was beaming at him like a long-lost son. "You have no idea how glad we are to be able to welcome you back to the land of the living, Spike."

_So I'm 'Spike' to this guy, huh?_ "No more glad than I am to be here," he said cheerfully.

"Is there anything you need? Anything we can get you to make your recuperation more pleasant?"

The tour-guide chirpiness of the offer sat oddly with those blank eyes. "I already went into that with Dr. Chan. But I had one question he couldn't answer. Or wouldn't."

"Let me guess. You're curious about why the ISSP would extend itself like this for you."

"Yeah, that's the question, all right."

"The answer – or part of the answer – is that this isn't an officially acknowledged ISSP operation. You understand."

"I figured that part out."

"These facilities are ISSP, on ISSP property, but officially they are considered derelict."

"Pretty nice place for a derelict."

"All the amenities," Hitchcock agreed. "The funding, of course, comes from the Red Dragons."

_The Dragons? Why do they want me alive? Well, lets play along and see where it leads us._ "Yeah, it would," he agreed, keeping a cocky smile in place. "The ISSP never has any cash. So… who's in charge now, since I whacked their boss?"

"Until you recover, a gentleman named Cho-Zhou. Do you know him?"

_Until I recover? What the fuck? _Then his brain caught up. _So that's their game. They're syndicate cops, and they think I killed Vicious to take over the clan._ Now that he thought it over, it was logical. Shin had believed he was going to take over from Vicious. Apparently Shin hadn't been the only deluded one.

And of course Hitchcock and company were expecting him to be very grateful to them for all this care. It definitely made sense. "I know Cho," he replied with a nod. He did, too. Cho-Zhou was a cold and ruthless son-of-a-bitch, but he was a bean-counter. He was the man responsible for all the syndicate's monetary operations, brought to power with Mao Yenrai. Spike hadn't realized he was still around. The man must be 80 if he was a day.

"If you know him, then you know that leadership doesn't sit easily on him."

"It wouldn't, no."

"He'll come here, when you're ready to see him, to discuss any details you want to know and to give you the picture of where the syndicate stands. There is some disarray, but not as much as there could be. Cho-Zhou is holding on for now."

"That's good. He's an organizer, all right. But hasn't somebody told you by this time that my fight with Vicious was personal? Even your own reports must have said that."

"We assumed it was, in part. Vicious was indiscriminate. Killing without mercy is a gift, but without sense? That's a liability. He made a bad enemy out of you, and he got what he deserved."

"And you never just assumed that's _all_ it was?"

Hitchcock smiled thinly. "Not for a minute. In fact, we were expecting you to make a move sooner or later, once Vicious took the Van out for you. Naturally, we're encouraging outsiders to believe your attack was purely personal. Leaking details of the story about the woman, things like that."

He meant Julia and Julia's death. For a moment, Spike was glad he was still feeling weak, or he might have blown the whole thing by getting right into this asshole's face.

"We're not sorry to lose Vicious," Hitchcock was going on. "He would have brought the whole syndicate to ruin. Believe me, all of us will be happy to get behind you instead of him."

"Well then, why weren't you chickenshits behind me when I took Vicious out?"

"You moved too quickly. And we never expected you to actually storm him in his own stronghold. I'll say one thing for you, you've got guts."

"Yeah, Chan's been telling me all about them."

"I like your sense of humor."

_Then why aren't you laughing?_ "Who else in the ISSP is in on this? In fact, how many are on my future payroll? I'll need a list." He might get something useful out of this conversation yet.

"Cho-Zhou will have all that information for you. As for this specific operation, and where you are hidden, we three – Roberts, Chan and I – are the only ones in on the secret. And we'd like to keep it that way. I refer specifically to Dr. Hammond. She is a major security risk and should be told nothing. She believes you are an undercover agent for the ISSP – yes, go ahead and smile, but she is naive. That's convenient for now. Naturally, she won't be allowed to leave here. We'll handle that, of course, when you no longer need her services."

_Gwen's not going to appreciate this._ But he had an opportunity to help her, and he was going to take it. "I might need her services even more when I'm healthier, if you know what I mean," he said suggestively.

Hitchcock's brows rose about one millimeter. "You like her?"

"What's not to like? She's got the best ankles I've ever seen, and a nice tight little butt under that white coat. Not much on top, but then you know what they say, more than a mouthful is a waste."

Roberts smirked. Hitchcock smiled. Spike could almost read their disgusting little minds. Keep the future boss happy with whatever he wanted, including sex, even if it was with a lady, a professional woman, a young and naive one. Hitchcock said, "I'll see to it that she understands your importance in our organization." Euphemisms seemed to come naturally to him. He should have been a politician. "Well, do we have an understanding?"

"Yes. I think we do." _More than you realize, buddy._

"Good! Is there anything else we can do for you right now? After you feel well enough to speak to Cho-Zhou, and the two of you determine that you are ready to begin taking the reins into your own hands, we will, of course, provide you with links and equipment. We can get you anything you need."

"Thank you," he drawled. "That's very cooperative of you."

"Just remember that when you talk to Cho-Zhou."

"Naturally." He smiled. Hitchcock smiled back. Spike wondered which of them looked more phony.


End file.
